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A Q&A with celebrated wine maker Vanessa Wong of the
Sonoma Coast’s Peay Vineyard
By Dina Gan The Vine LifeLocated on the true north coast of Sonoma County, in a region once thought inhospitable to grape-growing, Peay Vineyards has developed a reputation as a respected artisanal label in just a few years since its first offering. Now making top-ten lists and garnering wine critic accolades, Peay has a woman behind its wine: Vanessa Wong. Here, she reveals what it’s like to be a woman with a taste for the vine things in life. When did you first know you wanted to make wine? How did you get started in the business? My first job, back when I was in high school, was working for a caterer. After a long day of catering an event, my boss would invite us to sit and relax for a few moments with a glass of wine. It was the late ’80s and wineries were just starting to put the varietal grape name on the label rather than some generic name like “White Wine” or “Hearty Burgundy.” It was then I started to pay attention to wine and remarked that the bottle contained “Chardonnay” and thought, “Wow this wine is made from a specific grape and it has a name!” I became more interested in wine and worked at a wine and cheese shop in San Francisco while I was still in high school. Then when it came time to decide what I wanted to study in college, my older sister who was attending University of California Davis, handed me the course catalog and suggested I look through it to see if any area of study interested me. It was then I discovered that you could actually major in grape-growing and winemaking and that the coursework was all science courses, which was something at which I both excelled, and something pragmatic enough that my parents would approve. After my freshman year at UC Davis I worked at my first harvest at Robert Mondavi Winery in the Napa Valley. This harvest will be my 20th harvest. Co-owning a vineyard is a fantasy for most people. What is a typical day like for you during the winemaking season? What do like to do during the off-season, if there is one?  Harvest is the busiest time of year for the
winemaking. It is when the grapes become ripe and
ready to pick and when we vinify the grapes to make
the wine. During harvest, we work seven days a week
for about two months, often working 100 hours a week.
We get up at first light to start picking the grapes
on our vineyard. My husband, Nick, and his brother
Andy work with our vineyard crew to make sure that we
are picking the vineyard sections that I determined
ready to be picked and ensure that they are picked
with any specific instructions I have given. While
they are doing that, I go and walk through the
vineyard to taste the grapes and assess the vines to
make a decision about what will be the next section we
will pick because different parts of the vineyard
ripen at different times. I also take samples of the
grapes to bring back to the winery to analyze them for
the sugar and acid level. We then truck the bins of
grapes to the winery where we sort the bunches by
hand, de-stem them and put them into tank for
fermentation. I monitor the progress of the
fermentations by analyses and taste.
There are many other vinification tasks that need to be done during the course of harvest time, like pressing grape skins, putting wine into barrels and, of course, lots and lots of daily winery equipment cleaning. I decide what to pick the next day, we clean all the equipment, go back to the vineyard and start the whole process over again the next day. So if people’s fantasies of owning a vineyard include working like crazy, then they’ve got the right fantasy going! Because we farm our own grapes, we are generally busy during the winter pruning the dormant vines and spring and summer cultivating the vines during the growing season. When I am not helping my husband in the vineyard, I am taking care of the wines as they age in barrel, working on wine blends and preparing for bottling and, of course, the next harvest. We do take the time to travel during our slowest time: in the dead of winter. We either go to someplace warm for relaxation or visit some other wine growing region like France, New Zealand or Australia to learn more about the wine made there. I also love to cook and enjoy hosting an annual Chinese New Year banquet for friends and family. Have you faced any challenges as an Asian woman in the wine industry? The short answer is no. But to elaborate, I would have to say that although there are fewer women than men in the wine industry, and even fewer Asians, I have never felt that I found any difficulties stemming from within the wine industry itself whether from the companies for whom I have worked or others that I have had to deal with. Outside of the wine industry, I do occasionally come across persons who are a little surprised upon finding out that I am the winemaker. But I figure that is a broadening of awareness that they need to attain and not something for me to overcome. If so, how have you overcome them? I don’t really see myself as an “Asian” winemaker or even as “female” winemaker. Although these things define who I am as a person and contribute to my cultural identity, they do not define the wine that I make. I once went to a conference of winemakers and the woman next to me whispered to me, “Out of the 50 winemakers here there are only 4 women.” And I replied, “Really? I hadn’t noticed.” I relayed this story to my husband and he said, “Vanessa, that is so like you not to note that because something like that doesn’t matter to you.” I think it is important to be who I am, but in the end it is my work and collective experiences in my craft that I would like to show in the quality of the wine. What makes Peay Vineyards unique?  For me, one of the most important aspects of
making quality wine is growing grapes in an ideal
site. If you start with grapes grown in an ideal site,
you are that much closer to producing a high quality
wine. As a wine maker, my job is to coax out and
accentuate the defining characteristics of the grapes
to produce wine of distinction. I feel that the Sonoma
Coast is a new frontier, viticulturally, with its
unique climate and topography that lends the crucial
elements for growing grapes for quality wine: long
sunny days but cool nights, and mild autumns that
offer slow but continuous ripening seasons. With our
vineyard on the Sonoma Coast, we have an ideal
location and I am able to grow balanced vines that
produce fruit of the highest quality to make wines
that express a sense of place, or what we call the
terroir of the Sonoma Coast.
Which of the Peay wines is your current favorite? Choosing one is like picking a favorite among your own children. I do have a particular passion for Pinot noir. I studied winemaking and worked in wineries for two years in France and my favorite place for the wines and the vineyards is Burgundy which is where they grow Pinot noir. Like many of our readers, I'll often go to a wine shop and get completely confused by the staggering array of choices. What advice would you give to a woman looking to pick up a good bottle of wine for a romantic dinner? The most important thing is to know what you like. If you can remember a wine that you liked, or even one that you didn’t like, you can communicate that to the person at the wine shop and she or he can then steer you to a wine that would match the style of your preference. Also, let the wine salesperson know what you will be having for the meal and how much you would like to spend and that would help decide on the right bottle for the occasion. Where do you see yourself in ten years? Vines benefit from age as do people. The vines will be 10 years older and I will be ten years more experienced in working with our vineyard learning all of its peculiarities in how the different areas grow. I see myself continuing making wines with increased depth and definition as the vines gain maturity. For me, growing grapes is not just a job, it is a life. So we will be farming grapes for many more years beyond ten. Do you ever conduct tours of the Peay winery? What one wine fact do you like to tell visitors? While not open to the general public, we do host visits from customers who buy wine from our direct mail order. I like to show them the vineyard because that it is where it all starts. It is important to impress upon them that the quality of the wines comes from how mindfully we farm the grapes. Since JADE is an Asian publication, I'd like to ask -- do you get the "Asian flush" (red cheeks) when you drink wine? The phenomenon to which you are referring is due to an overactive variant of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, a genetic variant possessed by many but not all Asians, which results in the rapid accumulation of acetaldehyde in the bloodstream. Acetaldehyde accumulates faster than the body can break it down, causing dilation of one’s capillaries. Fortunately for me, this does not happen which is a good thing because it would definitely be an occupational hazard! |
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