Kirigin is the oldest active winery in the Santa Clara Valley. Its history goes back before Prohibition; the original Bonesio Winery was founded in 1916 by Pietro (Peter) Bonesio. In 1976 it was taken over by Nikola Kirigin-Chargin, who renamed it Kirigin Cellars. Then in 2000, aged 84 he finally retired and sold to Dhruv Khanna, founder of Covad. Khanna apparently has little interest in wine; his real passion is sport, and the vineyard would soon be augmented with cricket and football (soccer) pitches.

The winery continues to operate under his patronage, in the main producing fairly unremarkable wines. One standout is their Malvasia Bianca. The winery's own description (Flowery, grapey aroma, noticeable flavor, slightly sweet) doesn't do it justice.

2008 Kirigin Cellars Malvasia Bianca, California
An initial note of struck match soon blows off revealing nice pear and lychee aromas. On the palate there's lots of tropical fruit - gooseberry, lychee, melon and kiwi. The finish is rounded though perhaps a little short. 88 $18 ($9 after case discount.)

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Fair warning: This will be a brief but unusually geeky post.

I was looking over the NASS figures on grape acreage in the area this weekend, and noticed a couple of anomalies in the data.

Firstly, there's no Malvasia Bianca listed in Santa Clara. Yet Kirigin have been making an estate Malvasia Bianca for ages, from 6 acres of what are supposedly 60+ year old vines.

Also there's no Gewurztraminer listed in Santa Cruz County. Yet I know for a fact that there's about an acre at the Woodruffe vineyard; there may be more.

So how does NASS collect the data, and how accurate is it really?

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