The winery gets its name from a bicycle racing term that captures our approach to the winery and to winemaking. Prior to becoming a winemaker I was a bicycle racer for many years. I reached a level just high enough to get beaten by the likes of Lance Armstrong et al on a regular basis, but not high enough to get paid to race. I turned to winemaking as a source of similarly challenging mental and physical tests without the tax burden of a significant increase in salary.
On a typical modern road bike the smallest cog in the rear cluster has eleven teeth, and it's the one that produces the maximum gear ratio. Therefore, when you're at the point in the race when it's all or nothing, when there's no choice but to put every ounce of strength and determination you've got into the pedals no matter how much you're already suffering, when you have to give it absolutely everything you've got, you use The Eleven.