Meet the Winemakers: Montse Reece
Pedroncelli Winery, Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County. Recorded November 6, 2026, over Zoom.
Dry Creek Valley made its name on Zinfandel picked ripe, big dark wines that come in heavy with sugar, and yet by Montse Reece’s account the crew at Pedroncelli Winery is the first in the valley to start picking it every fall. She is the one who decides when, and she has been making that call since 2015. She walks the hillside blocks around the winery, planted to Zinfandel since 1904, looking for acid while the sugar is still on the low side.
She comes to it from two directions. Her father’s side of the family in Tarragona, on the edge of the Priorat, made and repaired barrels for the wineries around them, so the wood was part of her life before the wine was. At Universitat Rovira i Virgili she studied enology and came out convinced that chemistry and microbiology decide more in a cellar than most people outside it believe. She was already a winemaker in Spain when she moved to California, and with very little English she started over at the bottom of the cellar.
In 2007, she went to work at Pedroncelli, the winery Giovanni Pedroncelli, an Italian immigrant, bought in 1927, and she worked beside his son John, who had made its wine since 1948, when Harry Truman was in the White House. She spent seven harvests next to him. When he died in January 2015, at 89 and after 66 vintages, the family made her the third winemaker in the winery’s history and the first woman in the job.
So a Dry Creek winery founded by an Italian family nearly a hundred years ago now picks its Zinfandel on the judgment of a winemaker from a family of Catalan barrel makers, and she does not see that as a break with what came before. The word she kept coming back to on the call was legacy.
These are her answers, lightly edited for clarity.
1. Who taught you? Say the name.
I’m originally from Spain. I was born in Tarragona, in the Priorat area. My father’s side of the family were barrel makers. They made and repaired barrels for local wineries, so I always had that wine connection. I studied winemaking at Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona. When I started my studies it was a satellite of the University of Barcelona, and later it became Rovira i Virgili. I can’t name one person who taught me, but I had really good teachers who are well-known winemakers in Spain these days. Those were my teachers, and the rest has been making myself.
There was Jaume Gramona, from Gramona sparkling. I was very big into sparkling at that point. I would also mention Lluís Arola, Fernando Zamora, Joan Miquel Canals and Francisco López.
2. Who have you taught? Where are they now?
I’ve spent most of my time here in the U.S. in pretty much the same places, and I don’t think I’ve taught anybody. I was a winemaker in Spain, but when I came to the U.S. I had to start from zero. My English was not very good, and I started from the bottom up at Gloria Ferrer, then Ferrari-Carano and Rodney Strong, working in the cellar and the lab and back into winemaking. So if I taught somebody, it was myself.
3. Which vintages do you date your life by?
I have some interesting vintages. 2015 was a big vintage for me. It was a transition here at Pedroncelli. John Pedroncelli passed, and I took the reins. It was very stressful, but I think I handled it all, and it changed my life. 2023 was also a good vintage for me. I started my own private label, Montse Reece, a limited production of wines from Spanish grapes, Albariño and Tempranillo. It was very special for me because I put my personality and my wines out there.
4. What has changed in the trade since you started that somebody your age would notice and a new hire would walk right past?
The wine industry has changed a lot since I started. It was very individual, and there was a lot of personality in it. Then it became very commercial. Everybody was trying to make the most commercial, most liked, mass-produced wines, and I think that changed the styles of a lot of people, including small wineries. The only thing I would recommend is be yourself, because at the end of the day what counts is your footprint in the wine.
5. Walk me through a day at the peak of harvest, hour by hour.
I always wake up at five o’clock, no matter what. That’s my routine the whole year. I check my emails while it’s quiet at home, then I come to the winery and check the schedule for the day. If we need samples, we go to the fields, get the samples, analyze them, and decide where we are on maturity.
Picking is very important for everybody, obviously, but for me the picking time matters a great deal because my style is always on the high-acidity side, with lower Brix. So picking at the right time is very important. We pull a lot of samples, I analyze a lot of samples, and we decide when to pick. The day before a pick, the whole cellar crew and I get together and decide where the wine is going and what treatments I want to do on that specific wine. There are a lot of pieces that go together, and it’s teamwork. It really is. Everybody has to be on the same page.
6. What decision do you make that you cannot fully explain to somebody else?
The decision to continue. This is seasonal work. It isn’t the same through the year. You have seasons, and sometimes it’s hard. Harvest is hard, especially when you have a family. You disappear for a month, literally. It’s not for everybody. This type of job is for a specific type of personality, and my decision to keep going is because I’m addicted to it. I love this job, and I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. In fact, I’ve never worked in anything but wine.
7. Tell me about a harvest that went wrong. Start at the beginning.
Unfortunately, here in California, because of the fires we’ve had, those have been the most stressful harvests. It’s not that anything went wrong because we did something wrong. The circumstances made it really, really hard. We had to leave grapes on the vine because there was smoke taint, and those were hard decisions. We had 2017 with the Tubbs Fire, and then there were three fires in a row that really affected the area and changed the way we work and the way we make decisions. Those are the harvests that went wrong, because of the circumstances, not because of us. We did the best we could on those days.
8. Who is the legend around here? Somebody people tell stories about.
I think John Pedroncelli was a legend, just because of how long he was in the business, through so many decades and different ways of appreciating wine. To me he is part of the history of the valley, Dry Creek Valley and Sonoma. There are other winemakers in the area who are just as good. I didn’t work with them directly, but Carol Shelton to me is an icon too. There are people out there, but to me, John was the icon.
9. Is there something that happens at the end of crush every year? Same thing, same way.
Yes, we have a party, a big party. We drink a lot of wine and beer, we have fun, and we celebrate until late. We look forward to it. We do karaoke, we dance, we drink, and we make a huge celebration because, like I said, it’s very physical work, and we’re very tired and very happy that it’s over.
10. What do people outside the trade always get wrong about this work?
There is this romantic idea that winemaking is very easy. You get your grapes, you press, and you get a wonderful wine. It’s not that easy. You need an educational base. Chemistry is very important. Microbiology. I’m very big on micro. The wild fermentations and everything to do with them are a very important part of winemaking, and people don’t realize that. It makes a difference. The winemakers who have that background and the winemakers without it get different results. The wines are different.
11. What’s the first thing you got wrong, and who caught it?
It’s hard to choose. I’m a perfectionist. I think it was reading the room. I can be very focused on the small details, and sometimes you have to look at the whole picture. John Pedroncelli was big on that. We aren’t trying to change the wine world here. Some wines are for more elevated palates, and some wines are for everybody. Tailor every wine to who the consumer is. That was a good lesson I got from him.
12. Is there something you still do the way you were taught, even though you know a faster way exists?
I do everything the way I was taught. I continue to be very precise about the yeast I use. Yeast selection is a very important part of my winemaking. I’m interested in tailoring the yeast to every single wine. Every wine gets a different yeast and a different type of fermentation. Fermentation control is huge with me, and I continue doing it the same way. I won’t change. It’s my signature winemaking style.
13. What were you taught that you’ve since stopped doing?
Not really anything.
14. Is there a tank or a piece of equipment that has a name?
This question is funny, because I don’t. I have favorite pieces of equipment, but I never thought to give them names. If you ask me which piece of equipment makes the most difference in my quality and my winemaking, I would say my filter, my cross-flow filter. But I didn’t give it a name. Maybe I should.
15. Somebody walks in knowing nothing about wine. What do they already know that you can build on?
If somebody comes into the tasting room here at Pedroncelli and doesn’t know anything, the first thing I would mention is that this is a hundred-year-old winery. I’m the third winemaker here, so we have a very consistent style. This is part of the history of Dry Creek Valley. The wines we make here have a legacy to them. This isn’t somebody who started a winery ten years ago. It’s part of the history of winemaking in Sonoma. It’s very traditional winemaking, a very European style. The wines are very tailored to the area, to Dry Creek Valley, with Zinfandel as the main variety. I would show them how to appreciate the variety, Dry Creek Valley, and our winemaking style, and how that shapes the wines and makes them different from other places.
16. Whoever pours your wine for a stranger, what do they need to know that isn’t in the tasting notes?
Like I said before, the legacy. It’s important that we follow a tradition here. We’re not experimenting. We’re continuing a legacy that has been carried on for decades, and the style we use here is very traditional and very particular to this part of Sonoma.
17. What would someone have to watch you do to understand your wine? Something the glass doesn’t give them.
I’m very particular about tailoring every wine to a different image. We make many different Zinfandels, so it’s important to me to show that every Zinfandel is different. They don’t all taste the same. If they want to see me doing something different, it’s how I tailor the fermentation and the picking of those grapes to that particular wine to make it different. We can make five different Zinfandels, all from Dry Creek Valley, but they all have to be different. They all have to tell a different story. So for me, fermentation and yeast selection are very important.
18. What’s your favorite wine that you don’t make? Describe it without using tasting notes.
Because of my background, since I started in Penedès making cava, I love the grape Parellada, and I would love to make a single-vineyard Parellada someday. Unfortunately, very few people grow Parellada here in the U.S. But it’s a beautiful white grape that makes very beautiful wines.
Parellada stands out for me because it’s a high-altitude, low-alcohol white grape that thrives in the higher elevations of Catalonia. It makes very delicate wines.
19. When you make a great one, do you know right away? What comes to mind when it happens, a place or something you remember?
Yes. There are some vintages, and in particular some vineyards I work with, where in certain years I know they’re going to be great, and once the wine is finished I know it’s a home run. But all the elements have to be in place for that to happen. It has to be a good growing season and a good harvest season, and the fermentation can’t have any trouble. Then you know you have all the dots connected and it’s going to be a great wine. It happens. I wish it happened more often, but it happens.
20. One pour, one stranger. Which wine, and what do you say before they taste it?
I would pour our single-vineyard Zinfandel from the Bushnell Vineyard, because I believe that wine is unique. I taste so many wines from Dry Creek, and I make other Zinfandels from Dry Creek, but this one is very unique. It has natural tannins that other Zinfandels don’t have. It doesn’t need Petite Sirah to build it up. It’s already there. It’s also huge on the aromatic and flavor profile, really spicy compared with other Zinfandels that are more fruit-forward. I haven’t found anybody else with a Zinfandel like that, and that would be my choice.
Bonus. What does this work take away from you that people don’t see?
Time. A lot of time, family time. That’s the main thing. Like I said, at harvest you disappear from your house, and your family accommodates to that. I wake up at five o’clock in the morning, and some days you leave early, but sometimes you stay here very late. Time is the price.
A few more questions
Montse answered these in writing after the call.
What is one thing you watched John Pedroncelli do that you still do the same way?
The timing of the workload, and keeping an eye on the acids in the vineyard.
Your style leans toward higher acidity and lower Brix. Did anyone push back when you started picking that way?
No. That’s always been the way Zinfandel was made at Pedroncelli. We are always the first ones to start picking Zinfandel in the valley.
Is there a wine at Pedroncelli you ferment with native yeast?
Early on I experimented with wild yeast fermentation and decided that the best way to manage the Zinfandel fermentations was a hybrid fermentation, wild and selected, tailored to each wine.
What do you remember from starting over in the cellar after being a winemaker in Spain?
Picking grape samples at Gloria Ferrer and working on the bottling line.
Does your family’s barrel-making background change how you choose or use barrels?
Yes. The type of oak and the toast are very important to me to achieve the style of wines I’m aiming for. I also like to work with cooperages that listen to my requests.
Is there a song somebody always sings at the harvest party?
Our party song list is a mix of Mexican music and some classic American tunes. The song we all sing is Hombres G, “Devuélveme a mi chica.” A very fun song.
Recorded over Zoom on November 6, 2026, with follow-up answers in writing, and lightly edited for clarity. Background on Pedroncelli Winery and the Bushnell Vineyard from pedroncelli.com. Montse’s own wines are at montsewines.com. Montse Reece reviewed this interview before publication. Meet the Winemakers began with Scott Harvey of Scott Harvey Wines in Amador County, and the full series is at vianarra.com/meet-the-winemakers.
Patrick R. Dunn trained in narrative at the University of Maine under Stephen King and the folklorist Edward “Sandy” Ives, whose oral history fieldwork is the model for Meet the Winemakers. He went on to spend thirty years leading global crisis management and operational resilience teams across four continents, through 9/11, Katrina, and Superstorm Sandy, and more than a decade as a National Park Service interpretive ranger. He is WSET Level 3 certified. Through his practice, Vianarra, he helps winery owners, boutique hotels, and restaurants find their story and tell it the way it deserves to be told. He writes about wine and hospitality every week at newsletter.vianarra.com.