My passion for wine started quite unexpectedly. On a night out with friends in Naples, Florida, in 2004, I was poured a glass of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and my life changed in that moment….
I was born and raised in the United Kingdom and moved to the United States in 1987 to be with my (now) husband, David. It was a time in my life when I had not yet decided on a career path and, when we moved back to London in 1989, we took the opportunity to start a family and as a result, my career was put on hold. Although I enjoyed raising our two daughters, it became very clear when they reached high school and started to plan for college, that I would soon be an empty nester and would need to start thinking about getting my career back on track. Honestly, I had no idea what that career would be until I tasted that glass of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
Following that fateful glass of wine, I started to pursue my wine studies -- first informally in Chicago, where we were living at the time -- and then more formally in New York City, where we moved in 2010. Living in New York City, I had access to some of the country’s greatest wine schools which gave me the opportunity to learn more about the world of wine as an academic. My first classes were with the American Sommelier Association, followed by the Society of Wine Educators. Eventually, I enrolled in courses offered by the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET) where, after completing Levels 1, 2 and 3, I began to pursue the prestigious WSET Diploma in Wines. Unfortunately, halfway through the Diploma, we experienced a family tragedy that required me to abandon those studies. My dream of becoming a Master of Wine was shattered. However, as life will have, this was not the end of my dream -- just a change in direction. After working through our family crisis, my path went from the classroom to the Vineyard.
In 2011, I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation from Paul Hobbs, the very wine maker whose Cabernet Sauvignon sent me down this path, to join his team for harvest in Sonoma. In that harvest and several others that followed, I decided that I would pursue my passion in the wine world as a winemaker. In 2014, we purchased a property in Sebastopol, California, and I went on to transform our property (now known as Ross Knoll Vineyard) from an old paddock to a vineyard of 3000 vines of Calera Clone Pinot Noir. Our first harvest in 2019 produced a spectacular rosé, and there are plenty more harvests to come.
Along this journey, I met the creators of the SOMM documentary film, Jason and Christina Wise and Jackson Myers. They brought me in as an executive producer of the second installment of the renowned SOMM Films series, Somm: Into the Bottle and onboarded me as part of their team for the third installment, Somm 3. Through this friendship and business relationship, we launched, Forgotten Man Films, a documentary production company, and in 2019, Forgotten Man Films in turn launched a streaming network, SommTV as a forum to provide information and entertainment related to the Food & Wine sector.
It’s amazing what one glass of wine can do…..