the Vine
Seeker Winery:
The Winery with Heart
W
hen Randy and Karen
Seeker, owners of Seeker
Winery, moved to San
Martin in 2011, their
new property came with a small vine-
yard, but they had no designs on
starting a winery.
However, Randy, a chemical and
nuclear engineer with a PhD, couldn’t
resist the temptation to see if he could
make the withering vines come back
to life and try his hand at a little wine-
making.
“I nurtured the vines back that year
and ended up with less than a barrel of
wine,” he said.
He spent the next year doing the
work to get the vines back to health,
and that yielded tons of grapes and a big
yield of wine.
“We had so much wine we realized
we’re not going to do this for a hobby,”
Karen said. Her experience in consult-
ing, training and development leant itself
to running a winery. Within six months
they were licensed, permitted and
bonded to make wine.
Their estate wine, made from the
pre-existing grapes on the property, is
cabernet, a popular red wine. They’ve
focused on producing the Bordeaux
region of wines, including merlot, but
also a chardonnay and a variety of blends
with grapes from neighboring growers.
Every year they produce one wine that is
only available during that same year.
Randy explained that winemaking is
a lot of science, a little bit of luck, and a
tremendous amount of experimentation.
He varies his batches by using different
98
barrels, quantities of yeast, fermentation
schedules, and so on. Every batch that
comes out well goes through a blind
taste-testing process.
“The art is in the blending, how you
bring out the different fl avors and bring
breadth to it,” he said. “I was surprised,
as a scientist, that a tiny amount of
something will make a big change in the
wine. That is why I love wine making.”
Their batches are as small as one to
two barrels.
“When it’s gone, it’s gone,” Karen
said. She reminisced about a Syrah they
made with grapes from Lake County that
was so popular when blended with one
of their early cabernets, people are still
asking for it today.
“We’ll never serve a wine we’re not
passionate about,” she added.
Wineries have a way of attracting
people, and it made sense to the Seekers
open up their winery to entertainment.
They’re open two days per month from
March 1 st through December 1st, and
they almost always host a music concert
of some kind on these dates.
Popular bands that have performed at
the winery include JJ Hogg, Trainwreck,
and the Moondance Band.
Karen said that with time, they’ve
come to develop a brand for Seeker
winery based on its small size and their
high standard for their wines. The motto
for their brand is “Your wines. Rooted
in Silicon Valley.” Their tagline is, “The
winery with heart.”
Karen served as President of the
Santa Clara Valley Winery Association
from 2016 to 2018. In that role she got
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
FALL/HOLIDAY 2019
to know many of the roughly thirty
other wineries in the area. She and
Randy have really seen the wine industry
change locally.
When they fi rst moved to the area,
the character of the wine industry in
South Valley was more about large
production and not so welcoming. Now,
Karen said, “There are a lot of small
premium winemakers really focused on
making really good wine.”
Now she feels “there’s a place for
everybody,” from the very small wineries
to the big producers, and that there’s a
lot more unity than before.
Karen explained that Santa Clara
Valley is the oldest wine making region
in the country. “When we talk about
being rooted here, that’s where that
comes from. Many famous winemakers
started here and moved to Napa. They
moved back here during Prohibition
because they were replacing vineyards
with orchards.”
For the Seekers, their winery is
personal. “When you walk in here,
you’re literally walking into our house
and our backyard,” Karen said. “You’re
part of the family.”
Their loyal following includes wine
club members who partake of their
threetimes per year wine shipments
(spring, summer and fall) and those who
come for entertainment and celebrations.
The winery hosts weddings, business
meetings, parties and other events.
“We want people to know that this
is a place for any type of families, even
unconventional families,” Randy said.
“We’re welcoming.”
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PHOTO
Written By Jordan Rosenfeld