A couple of office rats with a dream to make wine

[winescribes]

Hey all!

Very excited to have stumbled upon this resource and plethora of winemaking information..

Just wanted to say hi and introduce myself and my story of how I fell in love with wine:

• Graduated college with a Finance degree and worked in San Francisco doing Consulting and Tech sales from 2010 - 2017
• Had a brief scare with cancer that made me think differently about life and realized that I wanted (needed) to travel the world and not be stuck in a rat race
• Left the US early 2017, and started in Australia. While solo driving around Tasmania, I visited some wineries and found the process fascinating; even more so, the passion shared by industry peeps.
• I was hooked. I began planning my destinations around wine regions - funding my travel via savings and remote work.
• I went everywhere -- Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Italy, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Chile etc.. learning by tasting!
• On my second pass through Australia, I worked a harvest at a small winery outside of Yarra Valley.
• A few months later, I started learning French and went cellar-to-cellar knocking in Burgundy and after many rejections, I locked down a harvest position at a small winery just south of Cote de Beaune.
• I fell in love with a gal (whom I knew back in San Francisco) who shares my love and passion for wine and after realizing a similar goal in life, she left her corporate job in SF.
• We worked a harvest together in the Santa Cruz mountains, making some incredible pinot and got engaged a few months ago.
• We started a wine blog dedicated to world wine route planning and discovering small batch producers (the wine scribes dot com)
• Now we are looking to fulfill our dream of opening up a small commercial winery.

We're eyeballing cool-climate regions in northern California, Oregon and Washington. Ideally we'd love to make pinot / chard and riesling along with some funky whites. Even with all the travel and three harvests, there is still so much to learn. We're making the most of our time on lockdown currently by taking courses from WSET, UC Davis and brushing up on Chemistry.

I'd love to get some hands-on viticultural exposure if anyone needs a hand in the coming months (CA, Oregon, WA area) -- if there's a better place to post this on the forum, please let me know.

Above all, I look forward to engaging with everyone on here as I'm sure we'll have a ton of questions along our journey.

Best,
Jesse and Cassie

 

[robert81650]

Welcome to the forum. I'm from North Alabama and deal with mainly Muscadines.

 

[cmason1957]

Welcome to our l little piece of the internet. If i were younger, I might be interested in a career in the wine industry also.

 

[ibglowin]

Welcome to WMT! There are a couple folks in the region that may be able to point you in a direction. I think @NorCal and @CDrew are in your area or reasonably close by CA standards.

Again welcome.

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome to WMT! Thanks for sharing your interesting story so far, and good luck in the adventure!

 

[winescribes]

If i were younger, I might be interested in a career in the wine industry also.

Meaning now that you've seen the industry, it's not as glamorous as it seems?

 

[winescribes]

Welcome to WMT! There are a couple folks in the region that may be able to point you in a direction. I think @NorCal and @CDrew are in your area or reasonably close by CA standards.

Again welcome.

Thank you!

 

[cmason1957]

Meaning now that you've seen the industry, it's not as glamorous as it seems?

Meaning at 62, starting at the bottom seems not appealing to me.

 

[opus345]

@winescribes Welcome. There is a ton of great information and experiences captured in WMT and the people are fantastic.

 

[bigcreekwinery]

Hey Jesse,

You might what to consider other areas. Im in Tennesee. There is room for others here. I am in my third year here and I love it.

Billy Brymer
Big Creek Winery
www.bigcreekwinerytennessee.com

 

[bkisel]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[NorCal]

Welcome. I’m up in the Sierra Foothills, where it is the antithesis of what you are looking for in terms of climate, but lots of nice wines are being made here. Frankly, since you have regional flexibility, I would avoid California due to not being business friendly and I think there are better Pinots coming from Oregon and Washington.

 

[Dennis Griffith]

Welcome abroad. Look forward to reading about your endeavors and good luck.