About Klau Mine Wine
Klau Mine Wine is named for the Klau Mine — the historic quicksilver (mercury) mining operation whose tunnels run beneath the Adelaida District estate property. The Klau and Rau mines, active in the late nineteenth century, extracted cinnabar (mercury sulfide) from the geological formations that underlie this corner of the Santa Lucia Range, the same calcareous and volcanic geological zone that gives Adelaida District wines their distinctive mineral character.
The estate declares this geological history as its identity: the wine grows above the old mine, the calcareous limestone that the mine's geology created, the mineral character of the soils that the ancient geological activity deposited. There is something below the vineyard; the wine expresses what grows on top of it.
The appointment-only tasting keeps the geological history central to the visitor's experience — you understand where you are, what's beneath the ground, what the calcareous limestone means.