Motorcycle enthusiast Manfred Krankl is Austrian by birth but arrived in the USA in the 1980s. He was involved in a bakery and restaurant business when he and his wife Elaine decided to start dabbling in wine. They experimented with a few bottlings at first, making a wine with Havens Cellars (called Black and Blue) and several in collaboration with John Alban (of Alban Vineyards).
In 1993, the Krankls created the Sine Qua Non brand, with the aim of producing the very best wine they could, thinking that it could be sold through their restaurant business (Campanile in Los Angeles) if the project went well.
They purchased fruit to produce their first wine, just 4.5 barrels of Syrah. A mere one hundred cases of Queen of Spades were released to the world, and Manfred sent one bottle to Robert Parker. The critic instantly gave it 95 points, the highest score ever (at that stage) given to a Rhône variety from the US. In 1995, they made their first white (The Bride) alongside two reds and the range has grown ever since – along with insatiable demand.
The duo is defiantly different, having, as they state, “an aversion to labels and dogmas or mindless ritual that are sometimes called tradition”. As such, each release is a unique blend, bearing a one-off label designed by Krankl himself and even the bottle shape varying. Until recently, each release also had a unique name – however, due to challenges with registering unique names for every wine they make, the couple has decided (for now) to abandon this approach. As of the 2019 vintage the wines will be labelled as “Distenta” (meaning unlabelled in Latin), with a number according to the year – so Distenta I for the 2019 bottlings.
The winery is in Ventura, but the majority of the vineyards they work with are around Santa Barbara. The couple historically worked with bought-in fruit from a broad range of sites, however as of 2020 the wines are made with exclusively estate-grown grapes (from the Eleven Confessions, Cumulus, The Third Twin and Molly Aïda vineyards). Although they fall under specific AVAs, many of the wines are bottled under the generic Central Coast AVA.
The range is mainly Rhône region varietals – with reds from Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre, whites from Roussanne, Viognier and Marsanne, and a Grenache-based rosé; however Sine Qua Non is not one to be pigeonholed, embracing grapes such as Petit Manseng, Touriga Nacional, Graciano and Petite Sirah as well. The Krankls used to make a Pinot Noir, however they stopped after the 2005 vintage. Most of the reds see 18-24 months in oak, however the EBA (Extended Barrel Ageing) releases spend significantly longer, around 40 months. Manfred Krankl makes only one EBA Syrah and Grenache each year.
In 2003, the couple sold their other businesses to focus solely on Sine Qua Non. Incomparably diverse and rare, the wines are sold almost exclusively via its mailing list (which is rumoured to have a waiting list of up to a decade) and on the secondary market, where they can fetch extraordinary sums. With only 3,500 cases produced per year and breathtakingly regular 100-point scores, the wines are coveted by wine lovers around the world.
Next of Kyn is a separate label for a range of wines produced from the Cumulus vineyard, established 2007. From 2014, there is also a separate brand for The Third Twin, which includes an ultra-limited Graciano bottling (with a mere 855 bottles made in 2017). These have their own separate mailing lists.
Manfred Krankl has also made wine elsewhere. Mr. K was his collaboration with the famous Austrian sweet wine producer Alois Kracher – the last vintage of which was 2006. Since 2010, Krankl started producing a Châteauneuf-du-Pape called Chimère, with the Maurels of Clos Saint-Jean.
