Domestic News: One of Our Biggest Releases of the Year is Here! 

As we hit the height of summer, there’s no slowing down on the domestic front—some of the year’s most exciting releases are hitting the shelves, and we’ve got stories to match. This month, we release the second round of out long-awaited private lable Anonymous wines, a trio of insider-only wines that deliver world-class pedigree at truly disruptive prices. We also take you along on a long-overdue journey to the far reaches of the West Sonoma Coast, where the dramatic landscape and remote vineyards yield some of the finest Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in the world. And finally, we reflect on the bittersweet closing chapter of Sean Thackrey’s Pleiades, one of California’s most iconic and unconventional wine legacies.

• Highly Anticipated: The Second Round of 'Anonymous' Has Arrived!
• There and Back Again: The Far Reaches of the West Sonoma Coast
• The End of an Era: Sean Thackrey's Pleiades Wine Co. Closing Operations

I'm beyond excited to introduce the second release in a new line of exclusive K&L collaborative bottlings—the Anonymous Wine Collective. After the incredible success of and great feedback on our initial Anonymous releases (that sold out VERY quickly) I’ve been working hard to get the next set of wines across the finish line. It’s taken a little longer than we hoped, but doing things right takes time, and good things come to those who wait! Finally I have not one, not two, but three new Anonymous wines to share with you all. I’m so unbelievably proud of these releases, I truly couldn’t be more excited about getting them in your hands and most importantly in your glass.

I have personally been able to taste each of these wines from the very early stages as unfinished wines, as barrel samples, composite blends, and as the final wines right before bottling. I have worked hand in hand with a couple of the very best and most highly regarded winemakers in the country to bring these phenomenal wines to you. Both winemakers have 100-point pedigree. Both farm some of the most incredible estate vineyards in their regions. All three wines are made with the exact same fruit, using the same techniques, and barrel aging, etc. as the wines that are bottled under these winemakers’ own labels.

The value that these wines represent is nothing short of ludicrous. All three of these wines are more than 60% less expensive than if you were to buy the wines under their traditional branded label. Keep reading about these incredible releases here.

Last month we finally pulled off a staff trip that had been six years in the making! I had long wanted to take our sales team up to the far West Sonoma Coast and Fort Ross-Seaview AVAs. This beautiful part of the state produces some of the very best and most distinctive Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the world. However, the wineries and vineyards are extremely remote and getting to them requires long miles on very tiny roads full of switchbacks, precipitous drop offs, and centurion Coastal Redwoods. Putting together my dream itinerary for this trip was no small feat. Winemakers’ schedules had to align. I had to get 15 staff members on a bus to navigate these roads, and rely on the willingness of our fearless designated driver, Jorge Valencia, to traverse these coastal mountains, often on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere! But we finally did it!

The first visit of the day (after a 7am departure from Redwood City, with a stop in SF) was 9:30 am at Ross Cobb’s incredible Coastlands Vineyard high above the town of Bodega Bay. The only other time I had been to Coastlands Vineyard was an extremely foggy morning a few years back when you could barely see 50 yards in front of your face. However, this time as the bus wound its way through the ancient grove of old-growth Redwoods and entered the vineyard, we were treated to the most incredible view out over the vines to the Pacific Ocean sparkling in the crisp morning light. Keep reading On the Trail.

As many of you reading this will know, Sean Thackrey, the creative genius and free spirt behind Pleiades Wine Co., sadly passed away in 2022 after 40 years of inspiring generations of winemakers and wine drinkers alike. Sean was one of the most experimental, naturally gifted, intuitive winemakers California has ever known. Never confined by convention nor distracted by fads, Sean followed his own path guided by his one ultimate goal, to provide pleasure to those that drank his wines.

After his passing, his protégé of 10 years, Dustin Durfee, took the reins and continued the work in the same self-taught, non-conformist ways that Sean had shown him over the last decade. Though Sean's inimitable personality could never be replicated, the wines have continued to consistently impress me and have remained very true to the core style that made them so beloved in the first place. The Pleiades Old Vine Blend, produced since 1981, though always bottled as a non-vintage wine, is one of the all-time best-selling wines at K&L. A quick scan of our database shows no less than 23 iterations of this bottling, and that doesn't include any wines that we sold before the mid-1990s that wouldn't have been logged in our current system. This consistently delicious, approachable, complex red has been pleasing people and staying relevant, perhaps even "cool" for decades. What's more it has remained a fantastic value in a world of ever-increasing prices. Read more about the enduring legacy of this brilliant icon here.