Winemaking and farming represented a significant career change for Brett who spent his early working life as an attorney in a law office in San Francisco. After making the move to Sonoma County he developed our Bennett Valley vineyard along with the help of veteran consultant, Bob Dempel. Along the way, his passion for wine grew and Brett began applying himself to the art and science of winemaking.
A “Rubber Boots” winemaker, Brett literally learned the winemaking process from the bottom up. While attending U.C. Davis Extension courses and industry sponsored seminars, Brett has worked in wine production at Alderbrook Winery, Matanzas Creek Winery and Ramey Wine Cellars. This hands on winemaking experience, knowledge of vineyard practices, and close association with the winemakers who purchased our grapes, allowed Brett to learn rapidly and leverage his experiences at every stage of his professional development. At the beginning of 2009, Brett left his full time job with Ramey Wine Cellars to devote more time to Frostwatch. We now craft our wines at Vinify" in Santa Rosa. Vinify specializes in providing state of the art winery facilities and equipment to small artisan producers and new ventures.
Winemaking Philosophy:
Trust your Vineyard! Like many winemakers, we believe that the best wines are made in the vineyard. Over the past several years we have fine tuned our cultural practices. We have topped over or replanted parts of our property to varieties or clones better suited to our site and the type of wines that we are producing. Once our fruit reaches the crush pad however we utilize meticulous winemaking protocols that blend the best of old-world tradition with modern winemaking technique. Most of our fermentations rely on indigenous yeasts which metabolize sugars slowly but result in more varied and complex flavors. Brett’s hands-on approach allows us to continue to use labor intensive practices that contribute to flavor and concentration which have been eliminated or minimized in larger production facilities.