History — Kazmer & Blaise was the wine that got it all started, and therefore holds a special place in our hearts. In 1995, Peter K. Molnar was tending to grapes. That same year, Michael B. Terrien, a “philosophy major with a fishing problem” (Michael is from Maine where he crewed on Linda Greenlaw’s boat, of The Perfect Storm fame), had just finished up his winemaking studies at the famed University of California, Davis.

Michael and Peter, already good friends, started making small batches of Pinot Noir from Primo’s Hill, a single, seven-acre block of grapes on Poseidon’s Vineyard. They soon discovered that their 20-something friends did not make great customers (paying customers, at least), and a few years later started putting some on the market. It’s been hard to get a hold of ever since.

During a creative lull, Peter and Michael decided to string their middle names together in order to create a name that almost nobody can pronounce. Winemakers? Yes. Brilliant marketers? Decidedly not. They also adorned the label with a rooster on a stump, but that’s a story that you might want to hear about after having a glass or two of “K&B”, as we call it.

In any case, this is micro-quantity wine — only a few hundred cases are produced each year. Kazmer & Blaise is truly a handcrafted wine, and is a deeply personal rendition of the varietal. This is Pinot Noir that can drink more like a Northern Rhone than a Burgundy. It is a style that might be called Roman Catholic, if other Pinots are considered Protestant. You can almost taste the guilt.