HONYOCKER

The Great Mistake:
We are GREAT at making mistakes.

You might notice that this wine does not follow any particular norm. It is wild; it is unique, it is a trailblazer. 1 White grape and 2 Red grapes.
Unconventional? Perhaps.
Delicious - Undoubtably.
This is another wine that just kind of happened and tore us away from conventional winemaking. There are no more “this is what other people do” there are no more “this is what a traditional wine is” - If you do that, you will be safe, but you won’t be truly original.

This wine is TRULY ORIGINAL - Go try to find a Grenache Blanc / Syrah / Mourvedre out in the world. I’ll wait……
See…. It just does not exist.
That’s the perfection of this glorious mistake that has taken on a life of its own. It is the wine that when you whisper its name around the Saarloos and Sons Wine Club family ears perk up and people ask… Do you have another bottle???
It has become a legend. And every legend has a great back story…

And it goes a little something like this…

A few years ago we made one of the best mistakes in our lives. Well, we had a problem. We just had too many grapes that year. Now, this isn’t what you call a “problem” it’s just that they had no home. All the tanks in the winery were full and we were sliding into the end of the harvest. Think about it like your boss walking in and saying, can I see you for a minute, at 5 pm on a Friday, right before your vacation… Yea. Like that…
Well, in 2014 we had a great year harvesting, we fulfilled every contract we had plus extra for ourselves, and we still have some fruit in the fields. 
As a stark contrast to 2015 when yields were down to 30% of normal. But that is farming, and I digress. 
My father has an emotional connection to having nothing left in the field. Even though everyone was fat and happy, there was still food on the plate. So, after a 3-minute conversation with my cousin, we decided to pick what was left and see what happens. 
Yes, the Saarloos Family comes from a long line of "problems are just inconvenient opportunities."
And, no. I have never heard of anyone ever making a Grenache Blanc, Syrah, Mourvedre before.

So how did it turn out?
Good, Really Good, Stupid Good.
I love this wine, mostly because it tastes like heaven and there is an underlying Pep in it. 
Yes, Pep. What a good word to describe it.

This wine freed the line for us years ago and its sold out before we even make it.  

This wine tastes like tearing around the mountains in a Jeep having a water balloon fight. 
 What a bunch of Honyockers.

You want conformity, stand in line at the grocery store,
while we have all the fun. 

I was called a Honyocker a lot growing up. I did not know that it wasn't really a word, I am not sure if it even is. But, now there is a wine named after it, so it seems pretty real now. 
Honyocker was just what my grandmother would call my brother and me when we were wrestling in the grass, doing burnouts, getting black eyes, laughing in church,  and just being wild kids. She would laugh at us and yell "quit it you little honyockers." It wasn't like she was using our middle names, showing us that she meant business. It was just this word that I heard when were having more fun that was particularly appropriate. 
I come from a long line of Honyockers. 
This label is of my dad running around in the hills of Arrowhead, just being a bunch of Honyockers. My mom pointed out somewhere there is a painting of this photo. Of my dad crossing the river in the Jeep - The GIL250 jeep. They were riding around in a WWII willies jeep that has the license plate GIL250. Yes, we still have that Jeep and still have the license plate. The story about the license plate is good for another time, as my grandmother drove 40 miles out of her way to get a "vanity plate" for her husband Gil before vanity plates existed. Like I said a long line of Honyockers. 
My great uncle Harold cut a lot of the fire roads up in the Arrowhead Mountains, and since my folks and their friends had a few jeeps and water balloons they would play hide and seek up in the hills and ambush each other. They would cross rivers and break each other's windows with the water balloons, and I am assured by multiple sources that there was no beer involved, ever.  They were just wild kids doing wild things having fun. It wasn't that they did anything illegal growing up, it was just that the laws hadn't caught up with them. My folks have tons of these stories and having heard them growing up; it seemed like that is what you were supposed to do. 
So when my teenage years of pranks, pellet guns, fire extinguishers, eggs, and general Honyoking were in full swing, my folks mostly laughed it off, and shook their heads a bit and went back to bed. If there weren't cops involved, they slept pretty well. 
Sadly, I think Cash Saarloos has a pretty deep Honyocking streak in him, and Grandpa and Grandma fill him with stories. 
Today you would probably describe a Honyoker as a nonconformer, a whippersnapper, a juvenile delinquent, a fun-loving rapscallion, or a curtain climber. I love these kinds of kids, the heart of gold, jump off the roof into the pool, tell the best stories and bend the worst rules. My niece Lane Linda is this kind of kid. 
As my dad said to my brother "Save money for bail, not college."

But as I have gotten older and my hair grayer, I have realized all of my memories are of these kinds of people. All of my friends to this day are a bunch of Honyockers that refuse to grown-up. 
Also, may I add that if you want to understand the entrepreneur, you should study the Juvenile Delinquent. 
If you want to see a successful entrepreneur, you should study the Honyocker.