By mid-April, Kimball’s Artisan Wines will be open at 120 S. 3rd Street, just across from the South Stage Cellars tasting room. The new shop is located in the space that housed Tobiano clothing boutique for 22 years. The new shop is a small, family-owned, neighborhood wine shop focusing on sustainably farmed and produced artisan wines.
The shop is owned and operated by Josh Kimball and his wife, Kaylyn. Josh notes, “Kaylyn and I both grew up in Coos Bay on the Oregon Coast…were high school sweethearts, who moved to Southern Oregon together to attend college at SOU in Ashland.”
Josh’s entry into the wine industry wasn’t planned, he says. “During my final term of college at SOU, a friend and I needed a few elective credits to earn our degrees, so we took a wine appreciation class as a joke to get two credits for drinking.” That fateful class was taught by the legendary Lorn Razzano, the original owner of the Ashland Wine Cellar. Lorn, ignited a spark in Josh. “As a native Oregonian,” Josh says, “I was shocked that I had no idea about Oregon being a world-famous wine producer…and I immediately felt a sense of pride about it, and became fascinated with the fact that we have this young industry that could potentially become the economic driver for our state.”
After graduation in 2004, Eric Weisinger of Weisinger Family Winery in Ashland hired Josh as a cellar rat, “basically to do everything that no one else wanted to do.”
Eventually, Kimball began working in the tasting room, which led to a five-year stint at King Estate Winery in the Willamette Valley, one on Oregon’s largest wineries. From there, Josh moved back to Southern Oregon, taking on a similar role at Cowhorn Winery in the Applegate Valley. At Cowhorn, Josh says, “I managed the tasting room and wine club and oversaw our distribution sales in Oregon and California. After four years of doing this, I was promoted to National Sales Manager in 2015 and tasked with expanding our distribution network.” The experience at Cowhorn exposed him to thousands of wines, and increased his love and knowledge of wine. It was during this time that he and Kaylyn started a family and also decided it was time to open the new wine shop.
Fifteen years after taking that first wine class on a whim, Josh has become the teacher, noting, “Wine is intimidating for a lot of people. It’s unfortunate, but it doesn’t have to be. Our goal with this shop is to create a space where people can feel welcome and comfortable. We love talking about wine, and we welcome curiosity and of course dialogue.”
In an effort to distinguish the shop from others, Josh says, “We are curating something that is very unique for Southern Oregon…wines that are spontaneously fermented with native yeasts, with nothing added (other than sulfites) and nothing taken away…the way wine has been made for thousands of years. We truly want to highlight the artisans who are working to preserve these traditions…and in a way, I feel like we are artisans too by doing this.”
The shop will carry 200 wines from France, Oregon and California, priced from $14-$300 with most in the $20-$40 range. Shop hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 11:00am-6:00pm.