Kenny Likitprakong grew up in Sonoma with an uncle who owned a winery but never thought he would make wine. His parents groomed him to be a doctor but a couple life-threatening injuries as a teenager taught him that life can be short and he should therefore do something he enjoyed. After graduating with a degree in enology and viticulture from UC Davis and with a $10,000 loan from his parents in 2002 when he was in his early twenties, he started in the wine business. His approach to wine was decidedly unconventional. He was a natural winemaker long before the term and genre were even well known, much less trendy. He made low alcohol, high acid wines at low price points with his skater friends in mind during the height of the Robert Parker era, when wines were competing to get as close to cocktail syrup as they could get in order to garner ever more astronomical prices. Twenty years later his philosophy hasn’t changed, but his output has increased dramatically. There are now 5 brands within the Hobo Wines umbrella, making tens of thousands of cases, but every grape is at least sustainably farmed with more than 80% being organic or biodynamic, and ⅓ of which he farms himself. The Parts and Labor Red Wine has historically been Carignane based but this year Grenache dominates and some Syrah is added to the mix. To keep his prices skater-friendly and his supply consistent, the wine must pull from multiple AVAs and will therefore always be labeled as simply California. This vintage contains grapes from 10 vineyards stretching from northern Mendocino County to Arroyo Seco in Monterey County. A good amount of whole clusters/partial carbonic maceration keeps the tannins light and the flavors of strawberries and other red fruits and exotic spices in the foreground. The primary concept of the wine is to be an easy drinking wine that goes with anything, so this wine will go with that.
(Grenache, Carignan, Syrah)