Vintage Women
The wine business is no longer for men only
By Sharon Boorstin

At 6 a.m. during the grape-growing season, with the mist still clinging to Napa's rolling hills, you'll probably find Jo Blank tramping through the vineyards with her Australian Shepherd. Blank, a viticulturist, is co-manager of the vineyards for V. Sattui Winery, responsible for everything necessary to growing quality wine grapesfrom pest management, governmental compliance, safety training, environmental issues and harvest predictions to, in her words, "whatever else piles up."

Viticulturist Jo Blank of V. Sattui Winery, with her Australian Shepherd.

In fact, it's the Jewish women in the business who are behind L'Chaim, a fundraiser for Beth Sholom Synagogue in Napa that will bring together 33 Jewish vintners and winemakers to celebrate the return to their agricultural roots. The event is slated for June 2325, and will feature tours and tastings at Napa wineries.

With a degree in botany from Arizona State University, Blank says it was "desire and luck" that led her to Napa and the wine business. "After graduation, I was working on experimental oil seed crops for the USDA in 118 degree heat in Arizona," she recalls. "I decided that I wanted to deal with a more romantic crop in a much nicer climate."

She moved to Napa and roomed with two former sorority sisters who had become social workers. Through an internship at Charles Krug Winery, Blank broke into the agriculture sector of the winemaking business, one that traditionally was off-limits to women.

"When I first started, men wouldn't even wait on me in tractor stores," she recalls. "I went to a grower-appreciation lunch, and out of the 150 to 200 growers in the room, there were only two women that actually worked in production agriculture—and they were chemical vendors."

Blank recently founded an organization in Napa for women in winegrowing, to help work through problems they face as a minority. In a field dominated by Latino farm workers, she also faces minority issues as a Caucasian. "I'm the only U.S.-born member of my department," she explains, "but the Latino men have come to respect me because I've had to prove myself just like they have, and I'm not afraid to get dirty and walk a mile in their shoes."

Blank, who grew up in a Reform Jewish family in Phoenix and is engaged to an industrial engineer in the San Francisco Bay area, feels a connection between her job and her Jewish identity. "Wine is so much a part of our calendar and our life cycles, from a bris to a post-minyan oneg. I find meaning in growing grapes—in agriculture in general," she says. "I've even learned that in cabernet sauvignonsaturated Napa Valley, there is a time and a place for Manischewitz."

A Family Affair

Bunnie Finkelstein and daughter-in-law Holly of Judd's Hill Winery.

Finkelstein admits that it was her husband's idea to move to the Napa Valley from Los Angeles in the late 1970s. "Art and his brother had been making wine as a hobby in our garage, and they wanted to try to make a living at it," she recalls. "My sister-in-law and I indulged them." The Finkelstein brothers established Whitehall Lane Winery, which they sold in 1988 when Art's brother retired. That's when Bunnie and Art built Judd's Hill Winery, named for their only child, in what she describes as "the steep, beautiful hills in the eastern boonies of St. Helena."

Since then, Judd's Hill has become known for its small production (fewer than 3,000 cases a year) of handcrafted, ultra-premium cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, merlot, petite sirah and syrah (available for purchase at www.juddshill.com).

"In the early years I did vineyard work, winery work and office work, not to mention traveling to meet wine buyers and distributors, and hosting at the winery for business contacts," says Finkelstein, who is now in her early sixties. "When you have a small family winery, there's no job you don't do."

Finkelstein was delighted when her son, after college and a brief stint as a filmmaker in Hollywood, joined the family business. "Judd has many interests and talents and could have done anything," she says. "And now Holly is right there with him."

Holly, 32, was the program officer of Steven Spielberg's Righteous Persons Foundation in Los Angeles when she met Judd nine years ago. "When Judd brought me up to Napa to meet his parents, I thought this was paradise," she recalls. Holly went back to school and got her MBA, and she now handles much of the business end of the winery, while Judd helps his father with the winemaking.

"It was easy for me to switch from a career in a Jewish nonprofit to one connected to the land," she says. "Wine is deeply rooted in Jewish tradition, and it's exhilarating to be a part of the process of creating something that brings enjoyment and happiness to people's lives."

Today, Holly concentrates on a unique side-business of Judd's Hill Winery: Napa Valley Custom MicroCrush (www.nvcmc.com). "We're one of the few wineries that custom-makes as little as one barrel of wine for customers," she explains. "We source the grapes from the best growers, and Art and Judd make the wine according to the clients' wishes." The demand for micro-crushing has become so great that the Finkelsteins are opening a new, larger winery in July 2006. "Our custom-wine clients bring their friends over to taste their wine as it ages in the barrels, and to join in the harvest," adds Holly. "It's really wonderful when our winery becomes their winery."

Finkelstein shares her daughter-in-law's joy in the winemaking business. "Each day is like a well-choreographed dance," she says. "There are physical and mental challenges, and there are intellectual and social rewards—and it's never dull."

Women & WineAn Online Community Julie Brosterman attributes her passion for wine to family Shabbat and holiday dinners. "It's not that I was crazy about the Manischewitz they served, but the opposite," admits the 49-year-old, who grew up in Great Neck, Long Island, and now lives in Los Angeles. "I started searching out kosher wines that weren't sweet and had complexity to bring to our holiday dinners, which led me to discover some really great wines. From there, I kept right on going and fell in love with the whole amazing world of wine." In 2005, Brosterman left her career as a strategic consultant to real estate and mortgage-industry Internet companies to launch Women & Wine. The thriving online community (www.womenwine.com), which has been featured on NBC, CNN and CBS and in Time, Bon Appetit and O, The Oprah Magazine, offers custom travel to 23 wine country destinations around the world, along with networking and wine education opportunities for women. In April, Women & Wine launched Women & Wine radio, an entertaining show la "The View," accessible through the community's website. "When you go to a restaurant, the waiter always hands the wine list to the man, not the woman, but today in the U.S. over 60 percent of all wine purchases are made by women," says Brosterman. "Our goal is to empower women to trust their own palates." Women & Wine features a wine club that delivers two bottles of wine, six times a year, to members. "My next goal for Women & Wine is a kosher wine club," she says. "Stay tuned."

Agricultural Roots

Jo Blank jokes that one of the best things about going to Friday night services at Congregation Beth Sholom, the center of the Jewish community in Napa, is the Oneg Shabbat. "Everyone donates wine, and it ends up being this fabulous wine-tasting event," she says. Those lucky enough to get a sip of Steve Matthiasson and Jill Klein's Matthiasson Winery 2003 Napa Valley Red are in for a treat. The Bordeaux-style blend of cabernet sauvignon and merlot has been winning accolades since its release in February 2006.

Matthiasson Winery's Napa Valley Red has been winning accolades since its release early this year. The winery is a family endeavor for Jill Klein, husband Steve Matthiasson and their two sons.

"One day we went on a field trip to a spot where vineyards had thrived 1,000 years ago, irrigated by captured rainwater," recalls Klein, now 43 and the mother of two young sons. "Growing up, my family had kept a little Manischewitz around, but no one really drank much wine. Suddenly it hit me that wine was an entrenched part of Jewish agriculture and tradition."

Four years ago, Klein and Matthiasson moved to the Napa Valley. She worked on a nonprofit agriculture project, and he became a consulting viticulturist to high-end vineyards, including Opus One, which makes highly prized "cult cabs" that start at around $150 a bottle.

"Steve and I had been making wine together for ourselves and to share with friends for years," she says. "One day he came home from work and said he'd just tasted the best merlot grapes he'd ever tasted in his life and that we should make wine to sell from them. Because he was a consultant to the growers, we were able to purchase some of the grapes, along with some high-quality cabernet grapes. Suddenly we were in the wine business."

And guess where the couple made 120 cases of their first vintage? At the Finkelsteins' micro-crush facilities.

Today, Klein runs the business end of Matthiasson Winery, while her husband continues his viticultural consulting business. "Right now I'm developing our website [www.matthiasson.com], pushing wine sales and preparing to bottle and label the next vintage," she says. "We are also developing an organic fruitgrowing business."

Klein still finds time to devote to the Napa Jewish community. "Along with Holly [Finkelstein] and other Jewish women in the business, I'm excited about organizing the first Napa Valley Jewish Vintners and Winemakers fundraiser, in June 2006," she says. "It will be a chance for all the Jewish people in the wine business to get together, enjoy each other's wine and raise money for our congregation's food bank and the Napa Valley Jewish Historical Society."