April 5, 2025: A Day in the Life (a Story About Our Llama, Dalai)
A guest blog by the fantastic Laura from our tasting room team
People think it’s an easy life. Being a vineyard llama that is. I’m one of two “working” llamas here at Kalasi Cellars. Ok, so working for the past several years has largely meant grazing, standing and occasionally sitting beneath a shade tree in my beautiful pasture here at Kalasi. My name is Dalai (after the Dalai Lama, get it?). I weigh over 450 pounds and I am black and white.
I’ve been a resident here for the past 5 years. In time, my life of leisure will be over and I’ll be put to work overseeing and protecting a small flock of sheep. The sheep will be let into our small vineyard toward the front of the property to munch down the weeds and perhaps provide a little fertilization. As the vineyard is only a few years old, the vines are not tall enough yet to keep the grapes out of reach of the sheep! This is why we don’t use goats! Goats are crazy and can jump and climb and eat everything they see, including all our precious grape clusters.
Our owners, Greg & Nikhila have over 100 sheep that help take care of our main vineyard, Narra Vineyards, in Brownfield, TX. Brownfield is up near Lubbock and is in a region of Texas we call the High Plains AVA. Even we llamas know that the majority of grapes grown in the state of Texas are grown in the High Plains. Yup, 90% of all the grapes grown in the Lone Star State are grown in that region. Greg & Nikhila have 140 acres of grapes at Narra and grow over 20 different varieties of grapes in the vineyard. So much acreage that they use Great Pyrenees (Pyrenean Mountain Dogs) to direct and guard the sheep. No llamas up there cause we can guard but aren’t great at herding!
Now, back to me! I am on full display in my field. Some of our tasting room visitors spot me right away and even know that me and my companion (more about him later) are llamas. Some think we are alpacas. I’ve even been called a cow (how insulting). We have a large pond in our field, which is not visible from our tasting room. This helps us cool off when it’s Texas Hot. I have been known to even stand in my water trough (especially when it’s fresh and clean) if it gets hot enough. We llamas prefer the colder weather the nastier the better!
Two years back, my owners got me a friend. He is another llama and his name is Roger Federer. Owner Nikhila is a tennis player and fan! Roger tries to steal my spotlight, but I’m larger, bossier and clearly the star llama. We like to keep everyone guessing as to whether or not we are buddies. Sometimes we sit or stand very close to each other, other times not so much. I guess it’s no different than any other sibling relationship.
People ask all the time if we are friendly. In truth, we are not, but then again we aren’t unfriendly either (we have never spit at anyone). We generally treat visitors to the Tasting Room who take the walk out to see us close up with complete disdain. Visitors are prohibited from feeding us, but to tell the truth, we probably aren’t interested in anything but our pasture grass, nice fresh hay that gets put out for us, and (our favorite) nice fresh leaf filled tree limbs that our grounds guy, Daniel, brings us. Daniel is our most favorite human (sorry Greg & Nikhila).
We mostly tolerate deer that get into our pasture, but do not much like dogs. Large or small, it doesn’t matter. When there is a dog on property we stand, lock in our eyeballs, snort and stomp our hooves. That’s why while Kalasi Cellars has a dog friendly patio, we don’t allow dogs past the patio area. Stick to the patio, dogs, and we will get along fine.
So, come to Kalasi Cellars and try the wine. Customers tell me it’s fantastic and the real star of the show (what???? not me!). In the meantime, I’ll just be out here adding to the charm and ambiance of our Hill Country Winery and Tasting Room.