Inman Family Wines
Kathleen Inman dry-farms Pinot Noir on ten and a half acres of Olivet Road and times the skin contact on her rosé by driving out for two tacos and back. She is usually the one behind the bar.1
Why go
Inman is a third-generation Napa Valley native from a family that never made wine.1 The farming came from her grandmother.1 A tasting seminar at UC Santa Barbara sent her toward Pinot Noir.1 A summer job at Napa Creek Winery introduced her on day one to a British visitor named Simon.1 They married and moved to England.1 She built a fifteen-year finance career there while running an 11-acre organic farm with cows, sheep and vegetables.1 They sold the house and came back, and a year of looking ended at a 10.5-acre farm on Olivet Road.1
She farms it organically. She dry-farms the Pinot Noir, which the neighbors told her not to do.1 Her picks come earlier than theirs, to hold acidity.1 She adds no acid and no enzymes. Fermentation runs on wild yeast, and the wine moves by gravity because she will not pump it.1 She says a recent analysis found the wild strain here is unique to the site.1
She built the counters out of crushed wine bottles and the floors out of recycled tires.1 The furniture came out of a hundred-year-old barn that stood on the property.1 Her reason: I like making something beautiful out of something ugly.
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Order this / avoid
- Order: Endless Crush. It is a rosé of Pinot Noir pressed directly for the purpose, not bled off a red, and she times the skin contact by the taco run.1
- Order: the sparkling. Single-vintage, single-vineyard, aged three to five years, made without added sulfites and finished on site.1
- Order: Whole Bunch of Love, a Pinot Noir and Grenache blend. On the objections:
Pinot purists will tell you this is sacrilege. Those people need to have more fun.
1 - Avoid: expecting weight. She is explicit about the target and it is not a fifteen percent wine.1
What locals & experts say
- Kathleen Inman, in the Press Democrat (17 February 2025):
It's fashionable now to over-ripen grapes and then 'fix' the wine in the cellar. I don't do that. Pinot noir should be delicate, layered, sexy. If I wanted to make 15% alcohol fruit bombs, I'd be doing this in Napa.
1 - Inman on the Endless Crush method:
I let the grapes sit on the skins while I drive to my favorite taco place, eat two tacos, and drive back. Then I press it. Very scientific.
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Good to know
- Thursday to Monday, 11am to 4pm. The Estate Tasting is $30 for at least five wines, refunded against a $150 purchase, and free for club members and up to three guests.2
- Meet the Maker is $100, a private seated tasting with Kathleen Inman including library and off-menu bottles.2
- Leashed dogs are welcome; children are not encouraged. They ask you to tell them in advance if you have to bring one.2
- Breadsticks come with the tasting and no outside food or drink is allowed. There are free EV chargers in the lot.2
Verdict
should-visit — She picks earlier than her neighbors to hold acidity, adds no acid and no enzymes, ferments on wild yeast and moves the wine by gravity because she will not pump it. She says a recent analysis found the yeast strain here is unique to the site. Endless Crush is pressed straight for rosé instead of being bled off a red, and she spent fifteen years in finance in England running a farm with cows and sheep before any of this. What is missing is anyone else's voice: the only substantial piece on her carries no byline, so this is her account of her own wine.