Q&A: Kim Engelhardt

Stop in at Sarah’s Vineyards any afternoon, and you’re sure to see the winery dogs—Miles, Missy and Maxie. And behind the counter in the tasting room will likely be the lovely Kim Engelhardt, ready to pour you a glass of pinot noir or chardonnay.

Sarah’s Vineyards is one of Gilroy’s 10 wineries, at the foot of Mount Madonna. It joins Fernwood Cellars, Fortino Winery, Hecker Pass Winery, Jason-Stephens Winery, Kirigin Cellars, Martin Ranch Winery, Rapazzini Winery, Satori Cellars, Solis Winery and Thomas Kruse Winery in the Wineries of Santa Clara Valley.

Engelhardt talked this week about how she got started in the wine biz and what a sleepy time at the vineyards it is in December.

Patch: What do you do here at Sarah’s Vineyard?

Kim Engelhardt: I’m kind of a jane-of-all-trades. I work in the tasting room primarily, during the week, taking care of a lot of our online work, website updates, emails, shipping out orders. One or two months out of the year during harvest time, I’ll leave the tasting room and go up to the production site and actually work with the guys and help bring in the grapes and process them.

Patch: How long have you been here and how did you get started?

Engelhardt: It’s been almost two years.

My husband and I moved down here, and our Realtor introduced us to the winery, and we became wine club members. I was looking for a change of pace with work and decided to volunteer here until they let me come on.

Patch: What were you doing before?

Engelhardt: Social work.

Patch: So is there a connection here, with social work and winery work?

Engelhardt: Well, people will joke that social work will drive you to drink, so there’s a connection. But my husband and I sort of randomly decided we wanted to get into the wine biz and moved down here to get property big enough to plant.  The plan was for me to work here to learn the business.

Patch: Do you have your own vineyard yet?

Engelhardt: We planted 2½ acres of grapes this summer. The whole community is really nice about sharing what they know. It’s not a big competition among the wineries; it’s really cooperative, and we learn from each other’s mistakes.

Patch: Who is Sarah? How did this winery get its name?

Engelhardt: Sarah was the original owner. That was not her birth name but was a name she went by at times, and I understand that when she was ready to name the business, it just sort of came to her, that it should be called Sarah’s Vineyard.  

Patch: Who owns Sarah’s Vineyard now?

Engelhardt: Tim Slater bought the property and the business from Sarah in 2001.

Patch: What else can you tell me about the winery?

Engelhardt: It’s been open since 1978 and has been known all along for pinot noir and chardonnay. We have continued to do those varietals, in addition to some others. Tim has a love for all French wines and French cuisine, and, in particular, he’s interested in the Rhone varietals, so he’s planted some of those here on the property and has purchased some of them from neighboring vineyards. So we’ve been doing some different Rhone blends along with single varietals for 10 years now.

The property has about 20 acres planted. About a third of it is pinot noir, a third is chardonnay, and a third is a mixture of some of those Rhone varietals.

Patch: What makes the Gilroy area good for growing grapes?

Engelhardt: There’s all these small microclimates in California, all with something different to offer. This particular property grows pinot and chardonnay really well, because we get a lot of the ocean breeze that comes through Hecker Pass. So we get cold enough at night for those grapes to do really, really well. And I’ve been told that where the hills are, maybe a half mile away or so, is where it gets too hot for these two varietals to do well. The ocean fog doesn’t go that far.

Patch: What’s going on this time of the year, after the October-November harvest?

Engelhardt: In the winery, they are stirring the barrels. There are lees that settle in the bottom, and you go through with a little tool and crank it back and forth to mix it all up. Keeping the barrels filled is another thing. There’s a natural evaporation that happens as they age, so we have to keep topping them so we make sure oxygen doesn’t get in there.

This is kind of a sleepy time, in a way, for the winery, with not nearly as much work as there was a month ago.

In the vineyards, it’s about the same. Some people choose to go ahead and do a half-prune at this point in the year. They clean things up and cut back all the fruited canes, all that wood you see, leaving about a foot left, with the idea that that wood helps protect next year's buds from frost. We won’t do the real prune until right before they start growing, around March.

Patch: And you have dogs?

Engelhardt: That’s Miles, Missy and Maxie. They’re the winery dogs.

Sarah’s Vineyard is at 4005 Hecker Pass Highway, Gilroy. It's normally open noon to 5 p.m. seven days a week but has the following holiday hours:

Noon to 3 p.m. Dec. 24, closed Dec. 25, noon to 3 p.m. Dec. 31, closed Jan. 1.