History
The Howard family held it until the sale. Bradley Brown of Big Basin, already buying here, is why a second winery found it: he called Lioco about a 1970s planting of dry-farmed old Wente, organically farmed, in what was literally somebody's front yard. Lioco contracted after one visit, and the 2018 Howard Family Chardonnay, made by Drew Huffine, came out of it. The Novicks took over in 2020, renamed it Kimari from Kim and Ari, and picked their first crop under the new name in 2021. Prudy Foxx, who founded Foxx Viticulture in 1997 after a stint under Randall Grahm at Bonny Doon, farms it as she does several of the neighbouring Corralitos sites, the Lester Family Vineyard among them.
The Site
Corralitos sits at the southern end of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA, whose 1981 boundary follows the fog line at 400 feet on the ocean side. At 570 to 590 feet, facing south on a five to fifteen percent grade, it clears that floor by under 200 feet, low ground in an appellation known for its ridges. Big Basin records sandy loam over base rock; Lioco describes colluvial golden sand with calcareous deposits. Olive trees, old-growth redwoods and fruit trees shade the property, and fog settles here and stays. Lioco has written that few places are as hard to farm organically as a fog-lashed site four miles from the sea. Ripeness is a race against botrytis, and in 2024 it was lost, a cold damp season and powdery mildew taking the whole crop. No Kimari was made in 2024 or 2025.
Vines and Blocks
One variety, Wente selection Chardonnay, dry-farmed, with no internal blocks named. The planting date is unsettled: Big Basin gives 1977, the Novicks and Lioco's 2018 tech sheet the early 1970s, Lioco's recent sheets the mid-1980s. The 1970s reading is the one most sources carry, putting this among the older Chardonnay plantings in the appellation. Acreage is unpublished and the lots are tiny: 1.36 tons to Lioco in 2023 for 77 cases, and 285 cases from Big Basin in 2017. The mildew year forced a rebuild that Lioco describes as heading back the old vines, swapping the quad pruning that crowded clusters in the dampest zone for double cordon, amending soil, cutting shade trees, and taking replants by massale selection from the vines still standing.
The Wines
Big Basin and Lioco are the buyers, and both bottled it under both names. Big Basin whole-cluster presses, runs native primary and malolactic, gives twelve months in French oak and six more in stainless, and bottles unfined and unfiltered. Lioco ferments on wild yeast in neutral 500-litre puncheons, ages ten to eleven months in barrel, then racks to steel for five or six months of anaerobic ageing. Both sit near 13.5 percent. Lioco's 2018 came in at 22.2 Brix with 6.8 grams per litre of total acidity, numbers that fit what both houses describe: modest ripeness and high natural acid. The saline note comes from a critic rather than a cellar: Matthew Luczy, reviewing the 2021 Big Basin for Wine Advocate, described a creamy finish supported by citrus-tinged salinity.