The wine business has traditionally been very male-dominated. And while the number of women in leadership positions in the industry is growing, most winemakers are still men. According to Women Winemakers, a mere 14% of California’s more than 4,000 wineries reported having a woman as their lead winemaker in 2020.
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However, there’s a crop of female winemakers who have been practicing their craft in the East Bay for decades now, collaborating and building each other up. The East Bay is the perfect place for these women to find their way. As winemaker Kristie Tacey says, “I love being in Berkeley. It has more urban culture and people thinking about community and making a space for everybody.”
Kristie Tacey
Winery: Tessier
Age: 50
Original Hometown: Bay City, Michigan
Current hometown: Berkeley
Winery & tasting room location: Berkeley
Tessier is a minimal-interventionist, small-production winery that just moved into a new tasting room on Fourth Street in Berkeley in early April. Tessier will be having a release party for their 15th vintage on May 11. Stay tuned on Instagram @tessierwinery.
How did you first get interested in wine and winemaking?
When I graduated from the University of Michigan and moved to California, my cousin took me wine tasting in Sonoma. I was 23, and after visiting a vineyard and seeing the vines grown, I started to clue in about all the different types of wines.
I didn’t realize [wine culture] existed before. My family wasn’t a wine family. I grew up in a working-class house. Wine wasn’t part of our culture.
How does your background in microbiology play into winemaking?
I switched [from science to wine] because the whole culture of being a research scientist is pretty analytical and kind of cold. And I was getting a little burned out in my 30s.
But it’s a great fundamental for winemaking. I keep a lab notebook and I treat it as an experiment each year … I write everything down and taste the wine every month to track its evolution.
I use the science to help guide me to make better wine though I am a minimal interventionist.
How did you start your own winery?
In 2009, I started with 200 cases. I always said I did it in a punk rock style. I don’t own any land. It’s always been grassroots for me, no investors.
Finally, last year I moved to Donkey & Goat [in Berkeley] to make my wine and a space opened up in Berkeley. I’m so ecstatic, I’ve wanted this for so long. It’s a 2,700 square feel winery and tasting room together.
Where are the grapes you use grown? Where do you make the wine?
We only source from organically farmed vineyards and also look for sustainable farms, including how they treat their employees. Most of the places we work w/ have their employees working year-round.
We get grapes from the Anderson Valley, El Dorado, the Santa Cruz mountains, Arroyo Seco—all two hours range around Berkeley.
How does music influence your wines?
I’m a DJ a KXSF. With my labels, I assign a song that kind of gives the personality of the wine. [Space Oddities and Electric Ladyland are two examples.] We really incorporate music, wine, and community.
Who are your customers?
We have a broker in California and a distributor in a couple of other states (Oregon and Washington, Hawaii, Texas, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Minnesota). We have a wine club and a website, and our tasting room will be open Thursday to Sunday.
How large is your annual production?
1,600 cases. We’ll probably ramp up this year because now we’ll have the tasting room. I’d like to bump up to 3,000.
What advice would you give to other women who want to work in wine?
I would say, for young women getting into it, get involved and see if that’s what you really want to do. It’s physically challenging, emotionally challenging, and financially challenging. But I love it, I love the lifestyle of it.
Emily Fernwood
Winery: Osa Major
Age: 34
Original hometown: Marin County
Current hometown: Oakland
Winery location: Berkeley
Osa Major Wines is a “one-woman enterprise” distributed in California to restaurants and bars all over the state. They also offer free local delivery for orders on their website. Keep up with Osa Major on Instagram @osamajorwines.
How did you first get interested in wine and winemaking?
I got into wine because I wanted a way to be able to have a job that would take me around the world. Originally, it was just a way to get to New Zealand and Australia and make a bit of money. I was 23 at the time and it sounded like a lot of fun. It grew from there.
After a few years, I knew enough to make a career out of it and truly loved it.
What was your experience like in Australia and New Zealand?
Winemaking is generally similar all over the world—although I make natural wines, so I’m not using any additives during the winemaking process, which is pretty unusual in the wine business.
I got into natural wine when I was working in Melbourne, Australia. I went there to work [the grape] harvest and after that harvest job ended, I stayed and worked for a small wine bar and a wine shop there and ended up taking a wine certification course, the WSET. I was able to really learn a lot that way.
How did you start your own winery?
As with a lot of things, it’s hard to take the first leap, so I was just trying to figure out how to do it on my own. My first year was 2020 when a lot of people were taking chances. There was a lot of uncertainty in the industry about what the demand would be.
Where are the grapes you use grown?
The vineyards are all over California. The nice thing about having growing partners is I can select from a lot of different areas including Lodi, Mendocino, and Sonoma [among other locations]. I am really able to take advantage of all the diverse climates and microregions California has.
I always work with organic grapes. Working with small, family-owned vineyards is a good fit for me. Small business to small business is a sweet spot.
How large is your annual production?
About 500 to 600 cases a year; I use 10 tons of grapes. It’s pretty small but has been growing a little bit every year.
Which women were your mentors?
Kristie Tacey has been awesome. She’s a really great community builder and has a lot of great experience.
What advice would you give to other women who want to work in wine?
I had a lot of winemaking jobs where I was the only woman working the cellar or the only woman working harvest. It can be a little isolating at times. I would say don’t let that discourage you. There are a lot of ways to be involved with wine. Winemaking is very physical, so I think that can be very intimidating to women but there’s absolutely no reason women can’t do all that stuff, you just have to work a little harder sometimes.
What are your plans for the future?
To grow up, expand a little bit. I’d like to start doing a little bit of my own farming. It’s a little bit tricky, a lot to bite off, but if I was able to find a small family vineyard …
Sabrina Tamayo
Winery: Ruby Blanca Wines
Age: 41
Original Hometown: Miami by way of Queens, NY, and Medellin and Bogotá, Colombia
Current hometown: Oakland
Winery location: Richmond
Sabrina Tamayo paints each label for her Ruby Blanca Wines winery herself. It takes a couple of months to finish each painting. “I know all the different variations that painting went through to get to where it is. I know all the different history I have under my belt,” Tamayo says. Order directly through her website. Follow her at @ruby_blanca_wines
How did you first get interested in wine and winemaking?
I went to art school in Philadelphia, and I worked at restaurants. When I worked at my first fine dining restaurant, that was when they were like: “You need to know about wine.”
I got certified and started working as a sommelier in New York. I was working for Noble Hospitality and [got the experience] at the Finger Lakes Harvest House—it’s a week-and-a-half mini-harvest. Each day, each person goes and works with a different winemaker. That was my first harvest, my first dip of the toes in wine production.
I was like, “Oh, I could do this too?” I started doing different harvests, coming to California in 2014. After the 2016 harvest, I just went back to New York, got my stuff and came to the Bay … and then I realized that the Bay Area is even more expensive than Brooklyn. So, I went back to managing restaurants.
Then 2020 happened and it was a good kick in the butt. I was like: “Life is short, you came to California to make wine, the time to do it is now.” I took part in the viticulture program at UC Davis at the end of 2020. It gave me the opportunity to work in vineyards and I met the winemakers who I work for now [Les Lunes].
2021 is when I started my own program in their winery. I wanted to work with Ribolla Gialla–type of wine, it’s the thing that started Ruby wine.
How large is your production?
It’s an average of about 10 pallets of wine (56 cases each). Each case is 12 bottles.
How does your Colombian heritage play into your vision of yourself as a winemaker?
I’m a feminist for sure, and I was brought up by strong women. And if it’s going to be something personal and a product that I love, it has to come from a place of love and that means my grandmas. They were everything to me.
On my dad’s side, my grandparents had coffee, cotton, banana, cattle. I grew up on farms, seeing the hustle of farm work and coming from a big family, learning different things that they instilled: being a hard worker, doing things you love.
[My grandmothers]were the bosses of their houses … And it’s a little easter egg because Ruby and Blanca [my grandmothers’ names] in Spanish mean red and white.
What advice would you give to other women who want to work in wine?
I think if you don’t ask, the answer’s always no. Men aren’t going to give you anything. It is a male-dominated world, but there are a lot more women and there is a growing sisterhood. Make space, take space, ask for things. If you don’t ask for things, you’re never going to get anywhere. We need to be there to support each other.
Which women were your mentors?
For sure, one of the first people was Megan (Glaab) from RYME. She is fearless. She is a badass. She also came from a sommelier background, and she also went to school for viticulture in Australia.
What are your plans for the future?
I’m going to keep going and get a distributor and have wine in different states. I’d love to see my wines on shelves in Philadelphia, New York, Miami.
I think California has come a long way in our history of making wine. I just want to be one of the voices sharing what we have to offer here. Let’s get more joy in more people’s hands.
Cassidy Miller
Winery: Buddy Buddy Wine
Age: 32
Original Hometown: Riverside
Current hometown: San Francisco
Winery location: In flux
Buddy Buddy is Cassidy Miller’s passion product; she makes both wine and cider. On top of running her winery, Miller is a photo producer. “For the four years [before I opened my own winery], I had been working as an assistant winemaker for someone else. I decided instead of making wine for someone else, I want to make it for myself and then have a different job outside of wine,” she said. She recently left her Richmond production facility and is looking for a new Bay Area location. Order through her website and follow her on Instagram @buddybuddywine.
How did you first get interested in wine and winemaking?
Probably around 2018, I started getting really into wine. I’ve always been a home brewer of kombucha and into crafts and when I got really into wine, I wanted to know how to make it.
I got connected with Jason [Edward Jones] at Berkeley’s Vinca Minor in 2019 and I knew that he brought on a harvest intern every year. I asked if I could be his intern in 2020. I quit my full-time job to be his intern and started Buddy Buddy the same year with no formal experience and no background in wine.
Now, I have taken classes at UC Davis and found training through reading and my peers and learning by doing.
How do apples fit into your winemaking?
My first year working harvest [2020] was kind of a crazy year … Because of the fires, our harvest got scaled back. So, we had some extra time and space and one of our growers in Mendocino also grew organic pears and gave us a box of organic pears.
We started just kicking the idea of cider around. We had the time and capacity to start experimenting and we brought apples and pears in. It was all new to me so it didn’t seem “fringe” because it was all I knew.
But now I do co-ferments; co-fermenting apples and pears with grapes. They are super fun and lower alcohol [around 9%] and just a great sparkling frizzante beverage.
How large is your annual production?
900 cases of wine annually; that’s 10,800 bottles.
What advice would you give to other women who want to work in wine?
To work a harvest is the best place to start. Formal education is great, but I was at a point in my life where I couldn’t’ afford to go back to school full time for it. And I think you can learn by doing.
It can seem exclusive and hard to enter but there is a great community out there and the best place to start is to do a harvest.
Which women were your mentors?
I was actually surrounded by a lot of men but have found a lot of community around peers. There is a strong brigade of women working in production in the East Bay. Through the past couple years, I’ve been able to meet a lot of women who are my age and it’s been more of a support system for me instead of a mentor.
What are your plans for the future?
I’m in a season of change. Ideally, I would find another winery where I could make my wine. I’m trying to find the right place where I can fit in, ideally in another winery space. A new home for Buddy.
Megan Sekermestrovich
Winery: It’s Lula Season
Age: 30s
Original Hometown: Corvallis, Oregon
Current hometown: Oakland
Winery location: Richmond
Megan Sekermestrovich of It’s Lula Season is both a natural winemaker and a fashion designer. Like many small-batch winemakers, wine is a passion but not a full-time gig … for now. Follow her on Instagram @itslulaseason.
How did you first get interested in wine and winemaking?
The original spark was from a friend in New York. She was in a wine club; they shared bottles at a weekly meetup. But it was she who introduced me to natural wines.
You didn’t necessarily need to apprentice [with natural wines], you needed space and intuition and some idea of how fermentation works—what can go wrong and what can go right.
Then I moved to California, for my then-boyfriend-now-husband’s job. And natural wine was everywhere and it was clear we were in the middle of the wine world.
That culminated in a gap in a freelance job of mine; I had about a week I was taking off and I thought maybe I’d take a longer break and get hands-on experience, which I did in Sebastopol on a biodynamic farm. That was a really great experience.
And then the next part of that journey was that I did a tasting at the space where I make wine now; Noel [Diaz] of Purity Wine led me around the space and offered that if I wanted to make wine, I was welcome to. So, I ended up taking him up on that offer.
I understand you design your own labels.
I do and a lot of them are vignettes of my life. For example, the Lula State Flower label is the state flower of the five states that I’ve lived in.
I had a wine called High Meadows and the scene on the label was the place where I got engaged to my husband.
Where do you source your grapes?
Honestly, all over, Mendocino County, Ukiah, El Dorado County, near Pinnacle National Park. They are all about equidistant—about two hours away.
How large is your annual production?
It varies but is around 400 cases.
What advice would you give to other women who want to work in wine?
I think, be curious. I think, for me, it’s been interesting because I don’t work in wine full time. So, I maybe feel like sometimes I’m intruding in the space because I’m not solely two feet in. I would just say, be curious and be compassionate.
Which women were your mentors?
Kristie [from Tessier] she’s just been amazing. She has been in it as her sole profession and career for at least 15 years. She continues to bet on herself. Being your own advocate in this industry is huge.
What are your plans for the future?
I want to be a sustainable business and I really want to continue doing what I’m doing because it’s really rewarding creatively.
