1.Who taught you?

The original teachers were my mom and dad. They taught me the importance of being honest, having integrity, and always doing the best job I can, and those values definitely help in the wine industry. My colleagues are some of the hardest-working people I know, and a strong work ethic was instilled in me at a really young age.

For viticulture and winemaking specifically, I had a wonderful professor at Santa Rosa Junior College, Merilark Padgett, and I really credit her as one of my mentors early in my career. I could always go to her for advice, and I appreciated all the knowledge she handed down during our time together. Then in my first real wine industry job, Lisa Russell and Erica Mandl at Korbel Champagne Cellars were always helpful and available to answer questions and talk about processes. In a male-dominated field, it was so nice to see women at the height of their careers, so accomplished, and willing to pull others up.

2.Who have you taught, and where are they now?

Oh gosh, I've taught probably over 30 interns in my career. I just celebrated my fifteenth harvest, my eighth for Goldeneye, and I've trained a host of full-time employees and lab technicians too. A few of them have gone on to other jobs in the wine industry, and they reach out occasionally to let me know how they're doing. A few have gone on to work harvests in Europe or the Southern Hemisphere, and I always enjoy hearing those stories.

When you're working with interns in a seasonal capacity, you meet a lot of people who are at a transitional time in their lives. Some people worked a harvest and said, I absolutely never want to do this again. The industry is self-selecting that way. But they've gone on to find success in another industry, and every so often I'll see how they're doing and what they're up to. Overall, I'd say everyone has found success doing something that matters to them.

3.Is there a vintage you date your life by?

Yes, my first one, in 2012. It was a very memorable vintage. There were four of us harvest interns vying for a full-time lab technician position, so there was some friendly competition, but we worked well together and having a solid team made getting through that first harvest a little easier. I was deciding between the business side of the industry, maybe marketing, and production, and that harvest is what solidified my decision to go into production.

In May 2021, I was promoted to head winemaker at Goldeneye. I remember receiving the last fruit of the vintage and this huge wave of relief and accomplishment. I did it. I was at the helm, I got all the grapes in, and we made this awesome wine. It just felt really good. I'd say those two are the most memorable.

4.What's changed in the trade since you started that someone new would walk right past?

Technology, for sure. When we have new full-time or seasonal employees, they take it for granted, like it's always been that way. And we're like, oh no, let me tell you about the days when we had to use a hydrometer to get Brix and temps, or an ebulliometer for alcohols, and all the things you had to do to make sure the measurements were correct. Now we have these wonderful high-tech instruments that do it for us.

5.Walk me through a typical harvest day at the peak.

I arrive each day at 6 a.m. Usually, a few of our cellar team members are already here getting the crush pad set up. The fruit generally arrives in the middle of the night, so our production assistant comes in at 5 a.m. and starts weighing everything, so we know how much we have and which tanks we need to fill. We usually have an idea the night before, but yields are kind of funny sometimes. I take a look at the weights, taste the fruit, and decide what can be combined and what should be kept separate, keeping in mind any additions that might need to be made. That's usually between six and eight.

At 8 a.m. the crush pad crew arrives and we start processing, which generally runs until 5 or 5:30 p.m. Once the crush crew gets going for the day, and the rest of the cellar staff is on task, I will head out to the vineyards to check on the blocks and confirm pick calls.

Brix and temps happen between eight and ten in the morning. Once we review the numbers, we issue work orders for any additions that need to happen before afternoon punch-downs or pump-overs.

A few days a week we all sit down and have lunch together. We're lucky enough to have catered lunches from one of our local favorites, Boont Berry Farm in Boonville, and I think that really helps keep spirits up and keep everyone motivated. It's really good food, and it's one less thing to worry about on a busy day.

In the afternoon I'm usually planning for the next few days, making sure we have tank space and putting pressing on the schedule if we need to free up fermenters. Once everyone goes home around five or 5:30, that's when I dig into everything I've put off. I'm answering emails, scheduling, and reaching out to our vineyard management company to make sure we have crews on the days we need to bring fruit in.

We do most of our fermentations in very small three-ton open-tops, and depending on where we are in harvest, that can be a bit cumbersome. All the new tanks for the day have to go up on our catwalks so we can use our pneumatic punch-down tools, and moving those tanks around can take two to three hours a night. So from about seven to ten at night, I could be moving tanks around the winery.

6.What decision do you make that you can't fully explain to someone else?

Finalizing our blends. Sometimes we'll do 50 iterations of a blend until it feels right. You get the light bulb, and it's like, yes, this is Confluence 2025. It's hard to explain why it's that particular blend. It's just something you feel is going to be the best representation, not only of the vintage but of that specific site.

7.Tell me about a harvest that went wrong.

Every harvest has a theme of challenges, but 2023 was really one of those harvests that makes you ask yourself, is this really what I do for the rest of my life? It was really cold and very long, and one of the largest we've done at the winery. Thinking back, it snowed during bottling in early March that year, and that was the first sign it was going to be a very interesting growing season. I wouldn't say anything necessarily went wrong. It was just one of those vintages you get once in a career.

8.Who's the legend around the winery?

There are definitely people in the valley who have been trailblazers and huge proponents of getting Anderson Valley wine out to the masses. For Goldeneye specifically, one of those people was Bob Nye, who was Goldeneye's president in the early years. He just loved Anderson Valley and Anderson Valley wine so much, and he was one of the reasons we started holding Pinot Fest every year. We hosted the festival at Goldeneye for ten consecutive years. Bob helped establish Anderson Valley as a wine destination, and was one of the first people to start moving the wheels on getting Goldeneye's Anderson Valley wines out to other Californians and the rest of the country.

Another person I really look up to is Milla Handley. Her namesake winery was one of the first six wineries when Anderson Valley became an AVA, and she graduated from Davis at a time when there weren't many women going into the wine industry. I didn't get a chance to know her that well, and I wish I could have, because I've heard so many amazing things about her as a winemaker and as a community member. She was also a huge proponent of Anderson Valley wines and loved this area so much.

9.Is there something that happens at the end of crush every year?

To celebrate the end of harvest, we always open a bottle of our sparkling wine and take a picture with the last fruit on the sorting table, and we usually pour a splash over the grapes for good luck. And as a nod to our bohemian, maybe hippie, roots here in Anderson Valley, we tie-dye our harvest shirts. It's a really fun day. We barbecue, and everyone ties and dyes their own shirt, and it's a lot of fun to see the creativity.

10.What do people outside the trade always get wrong?

A lot of people don't know exactly what we do or how much work goes into making wine. When they're out at the tasting room, it's a very romantic story, so they think we're just sitting around tasting wine out of barrels and that it's a little easier than it is. The people I've been able to host for a tour during harvest are really surprised by how busy the winery is and how much work goes into shepherding these wines through the winery.

11.What's the first thing you got wrong, and who caught it?

I probably tried to overfill a tank, and the cellar crew caught it.

12.Is there something you still do the way you were taught, even though a faster way exists?

Yes, I absolutely love mouth-pipetting juice. During my first harvest at Korbel, we had what we called the sugar shack, the scale house. For every truck that came in, we had to pull a sample and immediately run TA, pH, and Brix by hand, and we used a juice pipette and our mouths. I still think it's fun, and I like to have the interns learn it, even though nowadays you can use a pipetter, or one you just stick on the end that draws the juice up by itself. There was something about the challenge of getting the meniscus perfect at 10 or 15 milliliters, however much you were trying to pipette. I still enjoy that.

13.What were you taught that you've since stopped doing?

I wouldn't say it was a firm do-this or don't-do-this, but coming from my sparkling experience at Korbel, most of those fermentations happen in large stainless steel tanks. Here at Goldeneye we do all of our sparkling fermentations in neutral oak barrels, and it makes a completely different product. I'll probably always make sparkling that way. Sometimes when you use stainless, whether it's a sparkling wine or a rosé or a white wine, it can have a steely character. When we ferment the sparkling in neutral barrels, there's a softness you don't get from stainless steel tanks.

14.Is there a tank or a piece of equipment around here that has a name?

Yes, some of our larger fermenters are named after female scientists. We have Curie, Jackson, and Franklin.

15.When someone who knows nothing about wine walks in, what do they already know that you can build on?

This one's a tough question. If we're getting down to basics, they know wine comes from grapes and has alcohol. So how do you go from grapes to wine? Then I can explain the process. Our tasting room is at our Confluence Vineyard, so we could walk out on the patio and I could show them where the grapes come from, how I would decide to pick those grapes, and what happens at the winery to get them to the wine that's in their glass.

16.When someone pours your wine for a stranger, what do they need to know that isn't in the tasting notes?

I think they need to explain Anderson Valley and just how different it is. We have four estate vineyards, and the valley really isn't very big, about ten miles long by two miles wide, but there is so much diversity. Even though we're working primarily with one variety, it helps to explain the different sites and the different fruit we work with. For example, our Confluence Vineyard is very red-fruit driven, with fresh herbs and bright acidity. Then you travel into the deep end, the cooler end of the valley, where all the redwoods are. Our Narrows Vineyard embodies the forest which surrounds it, more textural, with bramble fruit, salinity, and a brooding character. The site really has an effect on the characteristics that come through in the wines, even though the two places aren't that far apart.

17.What would someone have to watch you do to understand this wine?

Probably tasting each barrel and deciding where it goes. Say we have a lot from our Gowan Creek Vineyard, and several of those barrels are going to be split between our Gowan Creek single-vineyard wine and maybe Ten Degrees, which is our pinnacle Pinot Noir. How do I decide which barrel goes in which blend? Again, it's that feeling from being here for eight harvests, knowing the vineyards really well, and knowing how I want those wines to speak to people. It's a feeling I get when I taste these barrels. Someone might say, I don't know how I could ever do that. It comes with practice, and it's a lot of fun. If one of the wines needs a little more length, I'll pick a barrel that can contribute that, versus one that's a little more fruit-driven or has more minerality.

18.What's your favorite wine that you don't make?

I really love Albariños. They're so crisp and juicy, and I love the minerality in them. They're clean and enjoyable and easy to drink, and I love drinking them on a warm day. They pair excellently with food, too. I'm a big seafood fan, so I tend to enjoy them with shrimp or oysters.

19.When you make a great one, do you know right away?

I think so. As a winemaker, you're always anticipating what's going to happen in the bottle. Maybe it's that decision of using one barrel versus another, and a couple of years later you open the bottle and think, we nailed it! Or shoot, I should have added that one, because it might have brought out a little more of the ripe fruit and spice. But I take pride and ownership in every wine that goes into a bottle. One might not be my favorite of that vintage, but that doesn't mean it isn't someone else's favorite.

20.One pour, one stranger. Which wine, and what do you say before they taste it?

I would pour them the Narrows Vineyard, our ranch in the deep end. I'd ask them to close their eyes, take a sip, and then sit with that glass for a while, because that wine just keeps evolving in the glass. It's a special site nestled amongst the redwoods. It has an X factor none of our other wines have, and for me, that's the reason it's so special. I would really want to nerd out with someone about it.

What does this work take away from you that people don't see?

People don't often see the personal sacrifice. You basically give up August through October, at least for me in Anderson Valley. I've missed funerals. I've missed weddings. When you're in this industry, it's really important to have a very supportive system around you, especially if you have a spouse or kids or pets. My dog has a very specific schedule he needs to stay on, and my parents are both retired, so he goes to stay with them during harvest because I just can't guarantee I'll be able to feed him at a certain time. Honestly, he wouldn't have that much fun with me during harvest anyway, because I'm so busy.

When people do see what we're doing during harvest, they're kind of in shock. They ask, how late are you going to work tonight? And it's, well, until the work's done, and then I'll be right back at it at 6 a.m. the next day. The unpredictable schedule and lack of sleep can definitely wear on you, but if you lean into it, harvest can be a lot of fun, too.