Tommy Town is a well-known vineyard in Santa Barbara County’s Happy Canyon AVA, a sunny site particularly known for its quality Cabernet Sauvignon. This is the story behind a wine from there that I created in collaboration with Cali wine whisperer and Timbre Winery founder Josh Klapper.
I’ve worked on several private-label projects with Josh Klapper for kosher wine’s one-and-only Moishe Mayer over the years, but Tommy Town is by far my favorite. From the juice to the packaging, this is a wine well worth your time.
It started with my annual visit to Klapper’s cellar in the charismatic town of San Luis Obispo, California. We sample barrels, create blends, and philosophize. And though his personal wines aren’t kosher, he produces several barrels every year so that people like Moishe can get a taste of quality Cali.
In 2023, Klapper was quite excited to show us a few barrels from grapes he snagged in Tommy Town’s 2022 harvest. The vineyard is known for gravelly loam soils with clay that promote excellent drainage and deep root growth, yielding grapes with ample concentration; combined with sunny days and a wide diurnal range, we achieve full phenolic ripeness while maintaining fresh, vibrant acidity, essential to quality Cabernet. Add in Klapper’s expertise, and it was an easy decision to claim two barrels for a new ultra-premium project that was to become my favorite of our collaborations.
Considering zero Tommy Town recognition and competition in the kosher market, and in a KISS mindset, I went for the obvious name: Tommy Town.
Though the name was keeping it simple, stupid, I wanted the art to reflect power, to stand out as luxurious, not just another everyday sip. Something special.
Moishe was looking for something to echo Kingsmark, an ultra-premium kosher wine from esteemed Napa Valley winemakers Maayan Koschitzky and Philippe Melka. Digging deeper, I discovered the man behind such extravagance was Neil Bromley, a Heraldic Artist, Calligrapher, and Medieval Illuminator based in the UK. This guy is the real deal, with several commissions from the royal family and works known around the world.
I wrote an email, we had a phone call, I sent a detailed brief, and he went to town. Tommy Town.
It’s so fun to go through the motions with an artist and see your idea become reality.
Once we were happy with the final art, I then hired my guy Daniel Birch, a phenomenal Graphic Designer and Illustrator, to vectorize and get our design print-ready.
Back on that same trip to SLO, I popped in to Field Recording to try their wines and met Carson Andrews in the tasting room, who at the time was working for MCC Premium Label Solutions. Come to find out, he already worked with Klapper, so it was another easy choice to hire them and bring this gorgeous design to life.
In the end, Tommy Town is an example of doing it right the first time. Hiring the artists and building out the print tools was a major investment. The first run hit the pocket hard, but this wine has a future, and the next run will be exponentially less, as we have already invested in making this bottle look as good on the outside as the wine tastes on the inside.
A Moishe Mayer exclusive, Tommy Town is available for tasting at Liquors Galore, The Wine Cave (Williamsburg & Monsey), and Moshke’s Spirits.
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