About

How and why did this whole wine thing start for me? To put it simply, I grew up surrounded by it. My grandparents retired to Petaluma in the mid-1980s, a few years before I was born. My mom and I lived in the South Bay during my early childhood and some of my earliest memories are driving across the Golden Gate Bridge on our way up to visit them. Back in the 90s most of east Petaluma was still entirely farmland and we would load up in the station wagon to go visit each one to buy eggs, meat, and dairy (looking back I’m sure my grandparents were buying some of the farmers’ home wines as well).

After my parents were married in 1997 and had my brother the following year, they decided to leave Silicon Valley in the rear view and move to Sonoma County. The move north to be closer to extended family proved to be the beginning of my wine career--I just didn’t know it yet. Wine was always around, my nona (one of two Filomena’s the label is named for) always had a bottle of bubbles in the fridge--even if it was just to celebrate a Tuesday night. My aunt and uncle who lived in Sonoma had a decent number of Alicante Bouschet vines in their backyard that were originally planted in 1908. My family regularly enjoyed wine with dinner--we’re French-Italian, it comes with the territory. This practice only grew in frequency and quality once we were living in wine country, there was no way that it couldn’t. It would take another step once I started middle school in Sonoma and had the children of many Sonoma winery families as schoolmates. Wine was simply always in the background for me growing up, playing a supporting role while simultaneously being understudy for the lead. It would get its moment in the light (and stay there), however, when I was accepted to UC Davis in 2007.

I began my time at UC Davis as a Biology major with my sights somewhat set on forensics. I had heard a bit about the Viticulture and Enology program, but hadn’t given it much thought. That is, until my Freshman student advisor recommended the class VEN 3, Introduction to Winemaking, as a general education class that would also satisfy a few prerequisites for my major. Sure, why not? The class turned out to be quite literally life-changing. I enjoyed it so much that I pondered the idea of switching my major and I enrolled in all the lower-division VEN classes I could. They proved to be intriguing and enlightening, with far more chemistry and biology than most people don’t immediately realize. I officially switched majors at the beginning of Junior year and haven’t looked back since.

My first work experience in the wine industry was in 2010 at a family friend’s small winery in Kenwood. Richard Kasmier, better known as Kaz, had been taking the Alicante from the vines planted in my aunt and uncle’s backyard as well as their neighbors’. Once I started to dip my toes into wine (figuratively, not literally yet), I asked my uncle to connect me with Kaz to see if he needed help in the winery during the summer and into the harvest season. That summer was a crash course into real vineyard work, bottling, barrel topping, and hospitality in the tasting room. Once school started back up, I would drive back to Kenwood from Davis on the weekends to work in the tasting room and handle anything that needed to be done on the cellar side of things. The cool thing about Kaz was that he was making “natural” wine before it was a thing in the industry. I’m talking all the way back to when he started in 1987; he wasn’t using any additives, yeast, or sulfur. The wines were funky, tickling the nostrils with every smell and full of crazy tastes that I hadn’t imagined could even be in a wine. Kaz was my first mentor in this industry and laid a solid foundation of ideals that I’ve maintained throughout my career: essentially, work your ass off and don’t be afraid to experiment (even if it fails). I remain eternally grateful to Kaz and his family for taking me in and pushing me upwards through the beginning of my wine career.

Following Kaz, I hopped around working harvests in a few different places; learning as I went and taking something with me (figuratively of course) from each stop. I experienced how intense and exhausting harvest can really get at a medium scale winery while working at Balleto in the Russian River Valley in 2011 (lots of early rain, so many late nights). It was also the start of a long and continuing friendship with fellow intern at the time, Cody Rasmussen, now assistant winemaker at Bedrock and winemaker/co-owner with his lovely wife, Emily, of their own wine label, Desire Lines. The following harvest in 2012, I began my love affair with Griffin’s Lair Vineyard while working harvest at Loxton in Glen Ellen. Immediately following that, I traveled abroad to work harvest in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand at Trinity Hill Winery in the beginning of 2013. It was here that I gained my cellar confidence, a greater affinity for Syrah, and a mild addiction to meat pies and sausage rolls (if you know, you know). All of this culminated in the summer of 2013 when I was hired at Bedrock Wine Company as one of their harvest interns for their new winery space in Sonoma. Following a long, very busy vintage, Morgan and Chris decided to offer me a full-time position as Cellarmaster, which I happily accepted. It has only been onwards and upwards since then, still learning new things every harvest.

 So now I ask myself, how and why is this whole wine thing still happening for me? Simple, I continue to grow up every day surrounded by it.