By creating a new generation of winemakers dedicated to producing great wines within the communities in which they live, the Urban Winery movement is taking the country out of Wine Country. Coterie Cellars is pioneering this movement of small wineries in the South San Francisco Bay Area. Situated abeam Willow Glen just south of the San Jose downtown, our winery is centered between some of the best vineyards in the world. Napa and Sonoma are just two hours north, the Santa Lucia Highlands are an hour and a half south, and the foothills of the Sierra Mountains are just two and a half hours east. What's more, if you're one of the millions of people that live among the urban communities of Silicon Valley, you're likely just a few minutes from us.
The formative years of our winery took place while we were part of a coterie of winery workers for two highly regarded wineries in the East San Francisco Bay Area, Eno Wines and Harrington Wines. It was here that we began making a number of wines under the guidance of these and other winemakers, and establishing relationships with outstanding vineyards. After learning how to work best with these vineyards over several vintages, we created one of the smallest wineries in California to produce tiny quantities of wines from the vineyards we had come to know and love.
We view smallness as a virtue. It's only through our smallness that we are able to understand in such a personal way each of our vineyards and the distinct personality expressed by every single barrel of wine in our cellar. To this end, some important differences between us and other small wineries are that we maintain agreements for specific blocks within each of our vineyards, we make every wine by hand ourselves, and we manage our own cellar. By comparison, many small wineries don't actually make their wine at all; they leave that to the winemaking staff at their custom crush facility. Some have never met their growers or spent time in their vineyards. With the highest standards in mind, that's not the way we wanted to make our wines.
Coterie Cellars is owned and operated by the husband-and-wife team of Kyle and Shala Loudon. The winery didn't begin with a fortune or a family legacy, although Shala's grandfather was a cooper and her family has vineyards in Italy. The winery was conceived to be nurtured from the ground up at a carefully measured pace with a focus on the highest craftsmanship at every turn. As Winemaker, Kyle oversees all aspects of the wine programs. Kyle holds a BS degree from Purdue University and has studied viticulture and enology at UC Davis. He is especially grateful for the guidance he has received over the years from many outstanding and influential winemakers. As Accounts Manager, Shala brings a client focus from several years at Williams-Sonoma. Shala and Kyle travel regularly to Italy and France, and throughout California, seeking out small wineries and artisanal foods whenever they can.
Our letterpress evocative labels reflect the spirit behind how we make our wines. Letterpress is a printing method of special craftmanship and history that results in a pleasing tactile quality. Our labels feature a simple grape cluster as a testament that it's the fruit that will always shape and inspire our winemaking. The six grape berries are a nod to the Gang of Six, the six-member team with whom we made some of our earliest wines.
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