Kalin Cellars

Terrance James Leighton

With the passing of Terry Leighton in 2023 at the age of 78, California lost one of its most original and quietly revolutionary winemakers. Alongside his wife Frances, who predeceased him, Terry built Kalin Cellars into one of the most fascinating and uncompromising wineries in North America — a name whispered with reverence among those who truly know.

Founded in 1975 in Novato, Marin County, Kalin Cellars was never about chasing fame or fortune. Terry and Frances, both trained microbiologists, pursued a singular vision: to craft wines that expressed place and time with old-world patience and scientific precision, long before words like "terroir" became fashionable in the New World.

From the outset, the Leightons were pioneers: among the first in California to barrel-ferment white wines, champions of cool-climate Sonoma sites like Charles Heintz, Lorenzo, and Dutton Ranch, and defenders of old-vine Semillon in Livermore — plantings that trace their lineage back to Château d'Yquem, no less. They applied their scientific background not to modernize wine, but to better serve tradition, allowing long barrel fermentations, extended élevages, and no filtration, all under strict microbiological stewardship.

Terry’s technical genius, paired with an almost monk-like devotion to quality, yielded wines of staggering depth, age-worthiness, and personality — wines that often needed decades to reveal their full beauty. In fact, Kalin Cellars would only release bottles when they were ready to drink, often with ten or more years of bottle age. As Terry liked to say, “Every bottle of Kalin is a library release.”

Among insiders, Kalin's reds — vinified in open-top redwood vats and basket-pressed — and whites — slow-fermented in French oak barrels — were legends. The 1980 Pinot Noir from Sanford & Benedict Vineyard, for example, left critics like Rajat Parr proclaiming it the greatest California Pinot Noir he had ever tasted, even 39 years after harvest.

Kalin’s sparkling wines, like the 1988 Cuvée Rosé Reserve from the Pasternak Vineyard, fermented in seasoned barrels and aged on lees for 11 years before being hand-disgorged with no dosage, set a gold standard for American sparkling wine — wines of stunning density, minerality, and elegance, born of yields (under 20 hl/ha) more parsimonious than many Grand Cru Burgundies.

Through it all, Terry remained allergic to marketing trends and commercial compromises. He preferred a smaller, informed audience to mass appeal, trusting that those who understood would be "hooked for life." He often quipped that Kalin’s special "Stealth Cuvées," named after the stealth bomber, would slip into the market quietly — and vanish just as quickly.

Despite widespread critical acclaim — Robert Parker once called Terry an “eccentric genius,” comparing his wines to the likes of Lalou Bize-Leroy and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti — Kalin Cellars remained a hidden gem, serving a dedicated few who valued authenticity over fashion.

In their later years, the Leightons expanded their experiments to small parcels in Burgundy’s Côte de Beaune, advised estates in France on microbiological issues, and even ran a biotech company supplying malolactic cultures long before this became standard in the wine industry.

Today, with Terry and Frances both gone, Kalin Cellars’ future production has sadly ended. However, a precious few unreleased vintages remain — each bottle a testament to their life's work, a chapter of California wine history written with intelligence, humility, and soul.

At Kalin Cellars, it was never about quick success. As Terry always reminded us: "Fine wine is a journey, not a destination."

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