Winery Notes:

So what's the logical thing to do if you're a restaurateur who can't get the necessary allocations of "cult" wines that you want? Why, start your own winery and beat the players at their own game, of course! In 1992, Manfred Krankl, a managing partner in Campanile restaurant in Los Angeles made his first wine with Michael Havens of Havens Wine Cellars. His debut under the Sine Qua Non label was "Queen of Spades" and the wordplay has just become more and more creative with each subsequent release. One of the most incredible facts about Krankl is that he never makes the same wine twice. Between the deliciously wicked prose and delectably indulgent wines, Sine Qua Non is synonymous with the precisely wrought excess that is so de rigeur. There is a inexorable "WOW!" factor that the highly extracted, concentrated and flashy wines inspire in their acolytes. The name, Sine Qua Non, translated from Latin means "something indispensable." Considering the frenzy of buying and trading that occurs after every new release, this wine, with its original artwork on every label, obviously is.