Manfred Krankl.

Zu den Kultweinen von Manfred Krankl ---> Sine Qua Non

Dear Friend:

Talisman, that´s what I was going to name the two reds we are hawking here today. I made two linoleum cuts for them, both of them of Dennis Hopper. One as a young, handsome, cowboy hat clad, full of piss and vinegar punk. That one was intended for our 2008 Syrah. The other when he was an older guy. Still handsome, a little wiser maybe, showing all the reminders of a wild and crazy and intense life lived. That one was meant for our 2008 Grenache. I might show you images of them if I am still in the mood at the end of this story ... or I might not. I say intended and meant for because the art authorities, the folks apparently protecting your eyeballs and brains from lurid corruption by people like us, the wizards at the endearingly named Alcohol-and-Tobacco-Tax-and-Trade-Bureau, TTB to abbreviate the mouthful…or as I call them "Them Taxing Bureaucrats"...rejected them...forbade me to use them.

Not worth getting into really and it is definitely never a good idea to challenge civil servants who work at such ominously named agencies where they enjoy almost limitless powers over little label and winemakers like me. Instead I´ll tell you why I wanted to use these labels in the first place, so you´ll know...as the late Paul Harvey used to say..."the rest of the story."

In late May I read that Dennis Hopper had passed away. I always liked him as an actor (I never met the man, so ultimately I never really knew him of course). For whatever weird reason I have always been a little bit attracted to his madness. I read many stories about his out-of-control bouts and nutty outbursts and drinking and shooting guns through walls and other outrageous behavior. I don´t know why I find that somewhat...uhmm...interesting, maybe it´s the underlying vulnerability of it all. But one way or another, just looking at his penetrating eyes and sensing the intensity of his personality always drew me in. Of course he also was very creative and definitely a risk taker. Not only was he an actor and director, he was also a gifted photographer. In fact we are proud to own one of his originals, a silk screen of one of his photographs called "Steer Manure". The name makes me smile. But the main reason I wanted to use his mugs and call them Talisman is this: as I read about his death, it sort of dawned on me that he played a role, a rather small one - although it is impossible to figure how big or small it actually might have been - in my being here in the USA and leading the life I do.

You see I grew up in a little Austrian town called Enns. By definition just about every town in Austria is little. Vienna is a city and as such the only exception. My town had a population of 10,000 and that hasn´t changed much in decades. It is not in the Alps, so there weren´t many tourists or visitors. It has a little town square with a bell tower, a butcher, a baker...you know the rest. Everyone knew the local policeman, the priest, the innkeeper, the school principal and the mayor. The businessman who owned a big Mercedes was a celebrity of sorts for the simple fact of that possession, but at the dinner table he has derided for being a bloody show-off. Everyone knew everything about everyone. A new pair of shoes would instantly be noticed by the neighbor. My parents were lower middle class, as were many of the little town´s inhabitants. It was certainly safe and serene and in many ways a good place to be a child, but of course nothing...and I mean NOTHING ever happened there. As youngsters we used to go to the little train station for entertainment, stand on the platform and wait for the train to depart and then slap a few of the heads craning out of the windows. That´s how darn bored out of our skulls we were.

The memories of growing up there reminded me of a few Andy Warhol quotes. He said "when you are growing up in a small town, you say no one ever famous ever came from here" and "there´s no Michelangelo ever coming from Pittsburgh" (his home town). He said "if you grow up in a small town...you know you grown down in small town" and "there is only one good thing about a small town - you know you want to get out." That´s how I felt for sure. I was walking around in my skin tight bell bottom jeans, homemade Jim Morrison-for-the-poor concho belt and patent leather platform shoes, looking like a daddy longleg with Mafia galoshes. The old women of the neighborhood, themselves bored to nose bleeds and nosy as all get-out, would stare out their windows, shake their heads in disapproval and crow nasty gossip to my mother about her nutcase son.

I would sit at home and play Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, The Rolling Stones and other "degenerates" - people that would never have received approval from the Austrian TTB - as loud as I could and as often as I could on my decrepit dime-store record player - until my parents would yell at me in stereo to "for God´s sake turn that SCHEISSE off". All I wanted was to be somewhere else. If I couldn´t physically, then at least in my mind and so on went that music again. Then one day, probably around 1970 or so, my best friend Rudi and I went to the little local movie theater to see - and I´ll never forget that day - EASY RIDER. Written, directed by and co-starring none other than Dennis Hopper.

Well I can tell you that the 95 minutes it took to see that now rather dated flick changed my life. When I walked out of that dingy theater, nothing seemed the same to me. There were only two things on my mind: America and motorcycles. I had to be there and I had to have one.

Seeing these two guys - Hopper and Fonda - cool as cool can be...long hair, leather jackets (with fringe for cryin´ out lout in Hopper´s case), choppers, girls, sex and rock-and-roll, driving through this amazingly vast, open, varied, free and beautiful country....well, it was almost too much for me. My small town felt even smaller, downright oppressive actually. Besides uttering words like yes, no and mostly no-thanks I don´t think I said much of anything for days. I felt down and hopeless, but also fired up somehow. How, coming from this no money family and this two-horse town, would I ever be able to escape? How could I possibly make it to that most exciting place on earth, the great America and how would I ever get a bike like that? But one thing cemented itself in my brain: I was going to try and I was going to figure out a way and one day I would live in the US of A and nothing or nobody would stop me.

Well, I have now lived in this still terrific country for nearly 30 years. Not only do I have a motorcycle, I have several and better ones than those crappy choppers. I live a life that is much better, much more fulfilling, much more real than that made-up movie version in Easy Rider I was so longing for. It is much richer than I could have ever even contemplated. Had someone prophesied what my life would be like decades after I tore up that movie ticked, I would have called them insane. And funny enough I now live in a small town again, but choice, greenbacks and life experience make all the difference. Choice most especially. So, my dear friend, as my own life is steadily sliding west and thus becomes more frequently reflective, all this popped into my head as I was reading about the demise of a person I never even knew, but one that surely…in some odd way…had a life changing impact on me. And so I thought it appropriate, a little warm and fuzzy even, to use Dennis Hopper for two of my labels and call him a Talisman…my talisman. But alas, some fellow or gal with pen and clipboard and pocket protector (that´s how I envision them anyway) would not allow it.

But this whole Hopper tribute thing was already so embedded in my brain that I couldn´t just let go of it like that and so I decided to see what other connections I could make to it. Well, one of the loveliest (although there are many) outgrowths of my move to this country was the birth of my daughter. She is one of five wonderful children, but as the only girl (I am sorry guys) she gets preferential treatment. She is a beautiful young lady, inside and out and although I have always said I would never use my kids or my dog or something seemingly schmaltzy like that for a wine label, I broke that vow now because….well because the TTB dictators shot down my original idea, because I just adore my daughter and because I make the admittedly imaginative connection of her existence to my talisman Dennis H.

My daughter´s nickname is Bee, which became just the letter B for short (Bee was evidently still too cumbersome for us all) and the linoleum cut I made of her is after an I-phone photo she sent me at her 20th birthday. So the revised, new label for our 2008 Syrah is to feature that image and is to be called "B-20". The mind works in mysterious ways, especially when one is in a bit of a melancholy mood and reminiscences begin to dance. So the label replacing the old(er) Hopper image became another one of rather labyrinth-like associations and double-entendres. As I thought back of what it was like these first few months after arriving in enormous Los Angeles, the Lady Gaga of cities...from the Nurse Ratched of towns - Enns, I remembered how insignificant and isolated I felt in this sea of humanity. It was exciting for sure. Driving up and down Sunset Strip for the first time, seeing THE Whisky a Go Go, driving up Laurel Canyon or down Hollywood Blvd. had the same giddiness value of someone telling me today that Dylan was sitting in my living room playing guitar while Jenny Saville was painting in the library and Valentino Rossi was tuning up one of my bikes. It was invigorating and mind bending, but it was also scary and lonely. And at times I longed for old world, old fashioned simplicity.

I was suddenly grateful to know I always had a line, a phone line, a security line, a safety line to my oh so out-date, utterly un-hip, embarrassingly square, unworldly, unremarkable, but so very dependable and loving parents back home. I also knew that I better "walk the line", as in find a balance on top that fragile line between one extreme and another. To live up to my own expectations. To do what´s right, to behave myself enough so as to not get too deep into doodoo. To be a little more strict with myself. No more slapping craning heads out of train windows. To resist the countless licentious temptations this metropolis had for sale. Being in a new country, on a new continent, in a new world wasn´t all fun and games and it most certainly wasn´t like Easy Rider. There were plenty of Nurse Ratcheds here too, they just didn´t look like my old aunt Hannah. Here they were disguised. They cloaked themselves in a blanket of snazziness and for a country bumpkin like me it was easy to get confused and fall for the charade. But once the blinders of sheer euphoria became transparent, I fully realized that if I wanted to succeed in this vast land, I needed to keep THE line open to my old folks back home. I needed to walk THE line, like my inspiration D.H. never did, and beware that there is a red LINE to everything. Although I didn´t always adhere to these principals, broadly speaking I stayed on course and walked THE line fairly well. And so now, some 30 years later, I am still here, living where I want to live, doing what I want to do, happily married to my gorgeous E and with five (an actual handful) amazing and funny kids and a garage full of frivolities on wheels. And so I decided to call our 2008 Grenache "THE Line".

Actually, neither of these two labels - "B-20" and "THE Line" have been approved yet either by the label police in DC, but I can´t imagine what in the world the problem could be with them. Still, your order form will only call them 2008 Syrah and Grenache (without names), just on the off chance that they once again want to break the eggs in my basket. There is one more wine I need to tell you about. It is a sweet wine, a "sticky" as we call them. Now since the Mr. K project has sadly ended, the stickies will become increasingly rare, as they are always made in very limited quantities and not even ever year. This one is definitely a good one. It is our 2008 Roussanne Vin de Paille ( =wine of straw = air dried to raisins) and it is called "Jinete Bajo", which roughly translates into "low rider". Elaine is an all around animal crazy person. She loves pretty much all creatures short of maybe rattle snakes…which she kills while I hide until the deed is done (just a little un-manly confession). She is particularly fond of horses. She has four of them. One is this little Mexican horse called Bajo. In the traditional sense he is not the most beautiful horse the prairie has ever seen. Like me, he is a little too chubby, but he is clever and sweet as can be (also like me) and when I see E take him for a mellow ride, she looks like…well…a low rider, a "Jinete Bajo". The label for this wine shows the two sweeties together - E riding Bajo and it makes for a very sweet sight. The wine is made from 100% Roussanne, all from our own Eleven Confessions Vineyard. It was harvested on October 30th 2008 and then air dried for 31 days. Although certainly unctuous and rich and very flavorful, what strikes me most about this wine is just how sensationally balanced it is with 11.8% alcohol, 8.7 gr/Lit of acidity and 24% residual sugar. It feels like liquid silk on the palate. Only some 235 cases of this wine were made and there wasn´t any made in 2009, so I urge you not to miss it. It was bottled in 375ml. half bottles and packed into three bottle wooden cases, so of course we cannot offer this sticky to all you "sweet" people on our mailing list as there simply isn´t enough to go around.

Our 2008 Syrah is a cuvée of roughly 91% Syrah, 6% Grenache and 3% Viognier. About half the fruit stems from our own Eleven Confessions Vineyard in the cool Santa Rita Hills, some 14% from our own Cumulus Vineyard here in Oak View, 16% from White Hawk Vineyard in Los Alamos and 20% from the Bien Nacido Vineyard in Santa Maria. I hope that adds up right. It was brought up in roughly 2/3 new French oak and although it carries a 15.5% alcohol number, this wine is mellow and soft and well behaved. It fills every crevice of the mouth, but it is in no way aggressive, but rather creamy and full of rich, dark berry fruit.

The 2008 Grenache is stylistically in a sisterly vein. It is made up of 87.5% Grenache, 11% Syrah and 1.5% Viognier. Some 65% of the fruit comes from our own Eleven Confessions Vineyard, 29% from our own Cumlus Vineyard and only 6% from Bien Nacido. We also used some whole clusters here (that means some stems were included), but only about 16% of the lot got that treatment. This one was raised in a variety of different vessels...different sizes and shapes...and only about 16% of the barrels were new. It too carries a relatively hefty alcohol badge, well north of 15%, but again…the wine is supple and full bodied, but very smooth and gentle on the palate and with a more typical red-berry character. Lovely is the plain word that comes to mind here. In both cases, especially with the Syrah, we have somewhat less than we had in the 2007 vintage, so please understand that allocations had to be slightly reduced. Not something we ever wish for, but something Mother Nature forces us to do at times. I have now spoken of a few folks who have impacted my life along that delicious trail of wine. They have aided me in my winemaking career, they have influenced me, they have challenged me at times and they have caused me to think...and think on my own. But this third wine offered here today is dedicated to a person who is only peripherally part of the wine scene. I have not asked permission to make such a dedication and thus I shall only use her initials here: C.S. She is no longer with us...in the physical sense, but she has made a deep impression on me and I know also on Elaine...and we often think and speak of her. She was quite petite, but had a huge presence. Her face was always radiant. She would enter a room and happiness would descend on those present. She was forever concerned with everyone but herself. The conduit to meet her was wine, but our relationship with her ultimately had fairly little to do with wine and everything with the person. And much could be and was learned from her. She was one of the kindest, most giving, warmest, gentlest souls one could ever have the good fortune to meet. And she had the grace to be incredibly charitable, but in a quiet manner, so as to not ever draw too much attention to herself. She had boundless, but soothing energy. Elaine and I often said (and we came to that conclusion independently) that she reminded us of a beautiful hummingbird. She has not been with us - in the flesh and blood sense - for a number of years, but certain circumstances, situations or things remind us of her inner and outer beauty. Elaine and I live in a house on the top of a hill. It has many large windows and since it is tucked into the middle of a ranch, there is much wild-life all around us. It is with a certain frequency that some hummingbird blasts into one of our large windows and knocks itself out in the process.

Elaine then picks it up gently and with the precision and steady hand of an eye surgeon and the tenderness of a new mother nurtures the frail beauty back to consciousness and an active hummingbird life. The last time this happened, I found that little bird just so very gorgeous and it so instantly reminded me of our late friend, it almost felt like someone sent it. I took a photograph of it and decided right then and there that one of our wines would be dedicated to that great friend of ours and carry the label of that beauty of nature. In most languages this lovely creature is called Kolibri, which I find much more pleasing to the ear than the somewhat pedestrian sounding hummingbird.

Our 2008 White Wine is a wine that is very gentle, very smooth and velvety, very caressing, like a butterfly kiss of the palate. I can´t think of a more appropriate wine to dedicate to our friend C.S. and in her honor we called it KOLIBRI. I sure hope that we managed to convince you once again to not break with tradition and not break the link in your SQN collection. It is difficult to put into words just how thankful and grateful we are for your absolutely amazing loyalty and in many cases years and years of unwavering patronage. Many of you also write us these fabulously encouraging, often funny and touching notes and we just love these and collect them. It is incredibly rare these days to have such long-standing and truly special customers and we want to say THANK YOU for being just that. You make us feel blessed and very lucky indeed. May the rest of your year be full of happiness, deliciousness and great health, Elaine & Manfred Krankl P.S.: I ran out of space, so I can´t show you these Hopper cuts anymore...maybe you´ll see them someday in a book.

Text: Manfred Krankl.

Veröffentlicht am: 07.05.2011