KenZinns got a nice mention in the latest BrocCllrs e-mail offer:
There's winemaking. Then there's all the essential work that makes wine possible.
We're fortunate to have wonderful and hard-working people walk through the cellar door and make Broc wine possible. Oftentimes that critical work is much less glamorous. Late harvest nights. Long bottling days. It takes a community to make wine. (Any winemaker who tells you differently is lying.)
Ken Zinns is one of those folks. Technically an architect by trade, he's spent decades moonlighting in the wine industry. A powerhouse and not-so-secret weapon in the Bay Area wine scene, and has helped countless wineries with bottling and other harvest crush projects. It's not superlative to say he's a legend, just read this robust profile on his impact. Ken's worked with Broc since 2008 on a number of projects, but most significantly bottling.
Next time you pop a bottle of Broc wine, thank Ken and the team who bottled it. If you want to learn more about Ken, check out our full conversation.
How did you get started in wine?
It was a lot of things. One was meeting with winemaker Tom Leaf of Grapeleaf Cellars in Berkeley in mid-2001 (later Broc’s first official home). I gave him a bunch of wine shipper boxes I'd accumulated and that I learned he could use - and he invited me to help out at his winery if I was interested. That got the snowball rolling...
Many wineries have been in that space dating back to the 1970s, including Edmunds St. John - and my first bottling was there (manual bottling). Other than helping to pour wine at tastings and other events, all of my wine work has been in production.
When did you start working at Broc?
I helped a little during crush in 2008 after Chris moved into the Camelia Street space. I believe my first bottling with Broc was in 2010 and I've bottled with Broc regularly since.
Any good stories from your many vintages?
Many fun memories include ones while Chris was around the corner at Camelia Street. Helping Chris move three large upright wood tanks into the rear outdoor space of the Camelia street winery from another space in Berkeley. They barely fit through the door opening, and it took awhile to figure out how to set up bases for tanks - just some large pieces of wood underneath.
[See photo of the upright wood tanks at the Camelia Street cellar]
Another fun memory at Camelia Street was helping to load Carignan clusters with a pitchfork into a tall stainless steel tank for carbonic fermentation, standing high up on a ladder next to a macrobin that was forklifted up to the top of the tank. Like much I've done at various small wineries, that was not exactly OSHA-compliant.
What's really amazing to me is how much and how smoothly Broc Cellars has grown to where it is now from when it occupied just a part of the tiny winery space on Camelia Street.
What are your favorite Broc wines?
There's many. My consistent favorites include the KouKou Cabernet Franc, Amore Bianco (especially the current one), Love Rosé, and Vine Starr Zin.
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