Every body likes a story

  

 

      I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. In a little east bay suburban town, at least at the time it was a little suburban town, called San Ramon. My parents were wine drinkers and connoisseurs so wine was a staple in our home. I have many memories of visiting wineries in Napa and Sonoma as a boy with my parnets when things were a little "looser"  and the crowds were a little more sparse. Back when we could run and play amongst the barrels and tanks and the person pouring for you was probably the winemaker. The smell of the cellar was imprinted on my brain.

 

Fast forward some years and I found myself moving in with my big brother in San Francisco immediately after high school. He got me a job at a local pizza place and what was supposed to be a two month stay in the city for a high school graduation present, became a five year journey in the culinary arts and the San Francisco big city life. I was exposed to many amazing wines through the restaurants I worked in and my interest in wine and winemaking started to come to fruition. In 2000 I moved to San Luis Obsipo to do a harvest at a winery that a family friend was connected with and to also start attending some junior college to prepare and finish my core work in order to get a degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in Fruit Science. While working on my education, I started to work at a small winery in the northern Santa Barbara county town of Santa Maria. Unfortunately that winery is no more. The owner and my mentor, Ardison Phillips has since passed away, but I learned so much in those four years I worked along side Ardison and his son Bailey. At this same time my passion for Rhone wines took hold. I drank every bottle of the Rhone varietals I could get my hands on and then moved on to the actual Rhones when I could afford them. I was hooked. At this point I had the bright idea that if I ever got to create my own label, I was going to concentrate exclusively on Grenache. Someday, someday...

In 2004, I was accepted to UC Davis and in August of that year I moved from what had become my beloved central coast to the central valley. Before school even started, I was feeling hesitant about more school, more god darn college after four years already! One day I went and looked at the job board in the library at UC Davis and there was a flier for a harvest internship at Cakebread Cellars in Rutherford, heart of the Napa valley. I applied, I figured why not? I got a call back for an interview shortly thereafter and was offered the job at the very interview. School could wait a few months... Eight years later I left Cakebread and started working for the good folks at Obsidian Ridge Wine Company in Sonoma where they allowed me to make my own wine at the facility that I helped set up and was tasked with running. I also makes some fun and esotric wines for them under thier "Rabbit Hole" wine project as thier Research and Devolpment winemaker role. It was time. My dream of a label dedicated to single vineyard Grenache Noir was within grasp.

 

So with a few credit cards and what little money I had in 2013, I started my own wine company. And here we are. I found some great spots that I feel showcase what various clonal selections and terrior can do for this ever so versatile grape and as time has gone on, I've evolved in my wine making to 100% whole cluster fermentation on all my wines. Native yeast, no to little intervention and clean, balanced, thought provoking wines made in a balanced style. I find subscribing to trends and fads in anything is inherently not authentic. I am still a one man show. And THAT is authentic. I do it all here. I drive the trucks, I crush the fruit. I answer the emails, the phones, I run the books, write invoices, everything. I cold call brokers and distributors, hoping that we can get just one more account. I write the text, built this website, designed the labels, run the social media and all the nitty-gritty things that go on with running a small business. There is no part of this company that I have not built and my hands have not touched. And I hope some day, this damn company will pay me. But that's not why I'm here (although it would still be nice). I'm here because I love it. I am a wine crafter.