Carmel Magazine

"The way my wife Sylvia and I viewed and continue to view this enterprise is basically as a way to slow down time," Georis says. "Every year, with every new vintage, I have a time cap- sule that reflects the weather of that year and the events of my family." 1983? "My parents were still living, and we drank the first bottles from our vineyard with them." 1988 and 1991? "The years my sons Max and Klaus were born." And so on. The library of Georis wines is like a calendar or, more accurately, a Georis family diary. "But you don't just talk about our family history," Georis says, "you can taste it." Walter Georis' life began in Belgium. Though his family emigrated to Southern California in the mid-20th centur y, he retains a ver y European viewpoint about many aspects of life. "I approach the wine from a food standpoint, rather than from a scientific one," he says. "Although of course we use analysis on the wine, it's much more important to use your sense of taste. We don't manipulate the wine in any way, we rely on blending to achieve our results." Although he is no longer the winemaker, Georis is still intimately involved with the wines that bear his name. "I'm always in the blending process, no matter who the winemaker is," he says. There have been only four winemakers at Georis since its inception. The longest tenure was that of Walter Georis himself; he did the work from 1988-2004. He is an autodidact, tak- ing no formal training and learning by watching others, including Dan Lee of the Morgan Winery in the Santa Lucia Highlands who Georis tapped to produce the first Georis vintages. "We wanted to make sure the grapes we were growing were worthy," he says, "so after Dan got great results, I built the winery. I then traveled to France and worked alongside a wine- maker friend there to further hone my skills." In the early 2000s, son Klaus was surfing the internet and found a surprise. "He found a wine- Top: The Georis family—Sylvia, Klaus, Walter and Max—in their vineyard circa 1991. Bottom: Belgium-born Georis presides over the European-style hospitality of Casanova, his highly regarded Carmel restaurant. Of course, Georis wines are on the list. Photo: Craig Lovell C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • W I N T E R 2 0 2 0 193 Photo: Courtesy of the Georis family

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