Our sommelier-guided events are fully customizable. Our team will work with you to craft a unique and memorable experience for your crew. And, because Burgundy offers both prestige and clarity of focus—Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes—it serves an ideal topic for a wine workshop. If you’ve always been curious about diving deeper into this distinguished region, your company holiday party is the perfect chance to do so! Guests leave not only having enjoyed an evening of world-class wines, but with practical, lasting confidence they can use at their very next client dinner. After the guided tasting the event can transition into a relaxed reception where guests can revisit wines or explore new selections while networking and engaging with our sommeliers.
Sixteen wines go into our WineEmotion machines each month—half at the start, half midway through—and with a simple tasting card activated at the register, you can try them by the ounce. Sometimes it’s a perfect weeknight red, sometimes it’s a bottle so rare and storied you’d never dream of opening it on your own. Either way, the idea is simple: to share the kinds of discoveries we’re fortunate enough to make here every day.
Imagine strapping yourself into a Victorian diving suit, lowering into the inky Atlantic, and finding—rather than shipwrecks and squid—an old Ardbeg cask still breathing with smoke and sea. That’s the feel of Ardbeg: The Abyss, a 34-year-old Islay single malt Scotch surfacing this October at K&L’s spirits auction… with a $1 reserve. Yes, one dollar. Try not to hyperventilate through your regulator.
October’s Spirits Newsletter is loaded: the long-awaited Every Drop 16-Year “Dawning Era” lands in stock, we welcome Josh Gelfand to the buying team, and we’ve lined up a showcase of exclusive barrel picks spanning bourbon and agave. Don’t miss Old Particular & Signatory standouts—from savvy daily drinkers to blue-chip rarities—and a preview of our Ardbeg Abyss auction with a $1 reserve.
Any spirits lover can attest that our spirits selection runs as deep and as wonkish as you any out there. We’re thrilled to bring on a second Spirits Buyer, Josh Gelfand, who can help build on the wonderful work David Othenin-Girard has been doing. Josh is based in Northern California, so he’ll be a great counterpoint to David in SoCal. We’ve seen so much enthusiasm from our customers and growth in this category, and it’s extremely exciting to watch how it will continue to grow in the years to come.
This month in Domestic Wine, we’re celebrating everything from pioneering icons to hidden gems. Join us as we explore the groundbreaking work at Stolpman Vineyards, discover one of our buyer’s favorite small producers in MarBeso, and revisit the historic role of Farella in shaping Coombsville. We’ve also lined up tastings from Napa to the Central Coast that showcase California’s incredible breadth and depth. And for those who love a true K&L exclusive—keep an eye out for the next chapter of our Anonymous Wines project, releasing soon.
Anonymous is without doubt one of the most exciting projects we've launched in decades at K&L. The wines have been extremely well received all around and continue to fly off our shelves as folks drink them and taste for themselves what exceptional values they represent. It's a fun game to play, trying to guess whom we partnered with on each release, and many of you have emailed me some pretty good guesses. However, the most important thing that really drives this project is the quality that's in the bottle. If it doesn't taste good, intrigue and speculation can only carry the wines so far. The wines have to deliver, and I'm really proud of what we've put in bottle. I hope you feel the same way.
The region of Combsville in Napa Valley even describes itself on the official vintners' and growers page as a hidden gem. Despite being just three minutes from downtown Napa, the region is somehow still off the beaten path for most visitors to the valley. Coombsville is one of the more recently established sub-AVAs in Napa Valley, becoming officially recognized in 2011. There is, however, a long history of grape growing in the region going back to the 1880s. To this day the iconic R.W. Moore Vineyard, planted in 1905, is still in production. It was however in the early 1980s that the modern era of Coombsville began and no winery was more instrumental in the founding of this AVA than Farella. Firstly, second generation owner, Tom Farella, wrote and submitted the petition that led to the creation of the AVA. But Farella’s importance goes deeper than simply filing paperwork.
One of my absolute favorite small producers we're working with right now is MarBeso, based in the Sta. Rita Hills. I first got to know owner/winemaker Colin McNanny when he was making the wines at La Honda winery, just down the road from our Redwood City store. I admired the wines he managed to craft at La Honda, especially when you take into account that the team there produced wines from dozens of essentially “backyard vineyards” from Los Gatos to San Mateo. Colin and I became friends with a mutual enjoyment of surfing and finding great hole-in-the-wall taquerias around Redwood City.
The first time I encountered Stolpman was back in 2008 when I was working for Randall Grahm at Bonny Doon Vineyard. As the infamous “Rhône Ranger,” Randall sought out excellence in Rhône varietals throughout California, so it's no surprise that he ended up buying fruit from Stolpman who pioneered Syrah and other Rhône varieties in what was to later become the Ballard Canyon AVA. Stolpman’s Vineyard is planted across a series of undulating hills on the Western side of Ballard Canyon, just a few miles south of Los Olivos.
This month at K&L brings no shortage of excitement—from the debut of the Italian Discovery Series to the return of our Champagne Tent Event in Redwood City and Hollywood. We’re also spotlighting late-summer whites from Alsace, Germany, and Austria, and our Open Cellar lineup updates—your chance to taste incredible bottles by the glass in-store. There’s plenty to discover this month, and we’re thrilled to share it all with you.
