Black Kite Cellars, Tom Birdsall

Dan and Tom.

Tom Birdsall, owner of Black Kite Cellars, is our guest on California Wine Country with Steve Jaxon and Dan Berger. This is Tom’s first time on the show however their winemaker Jeff Gaffner was on the show on this episode of March 11, 2020.

Black Kite Cellars began when Tom and his wife Rebecca went on a cycling tour through Burgundy. They were just consumers of wine at that time. Then in the late 1990s his wife’s father bought a vineyard in Anderson Valley and planted the 12 acres to Pinot. Not all the fruit was sold. He had some leftover grapes in 2003 and found a winery, Handley Cellars, to produce some wine from that harvest. Then Rebecca made the plan started Black Kite Cellars as a small family-owned winery. Tom mentions that they were lucky to find Jeff Gaffney to be the winemaker, right at the beginning. Now they are specialized in Sonoma Coast and Anderson Valley. The coast has weather conditions perfect for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.  They begin by tasting a Chardonnay that Dan calls “substantial” and “opulent.”

The Black Kite or White-tailed Kite

The Black Kite is a bird, a small hawk, which is Rebecca’s father’s favorite bird. The local was known as the black-shouldered kite, now known as the white-tailed kite. Dan mentions that this bird is good at controlling voles and mice which can wreck vines. Another word for this bird is “angel hawk” which winemaker Jeff Gaffner remembers calling it. This is because of the way they hover over the land while hunting. So Angel Hawk became the name of their reserve label.

They only make about 3000 cases per year and they are in local shops and restaurants. They also now have a new tasting room in the town of Freestone. It is small but very well appointed. It is also right at the corner of the vineyard. They are open 7 days a week and they prefer appointments. The West Sonoma Coast, the newest appellation in the county, is their specialty. Their current production is eight Pinot Noirs and four Chardonnays. The wine they are tasting is a Pinot from Roberts Road vineyard, in Petaluma Gap, that the Sangiacomo family owns.