Blog

Showing Up

If there is one thing that was ingrained in me as an athlete, was to be on time, do what you say you are going to do, work hard every day, be accountable and responsible, and if you show up and do the work you get better.  Get your reps in.  Team sports rely on working as a cohesive unit and being good teammates, means lifting people up when they are struggling (on and off the court) and putting the team before the individual. 

This really helped me in the game of life.  I like being a good teammate, it gives me self-esteem.  I did all my practicum hours at 4-8 Wineworks, in Camp Verde.  When harvest intern roles were needed they asked me to come in and help.  I quite simply showed up and worked to my best ability.  That was rewarded with 3 years of harvest work for the 4-8/Merkin Vineyards and Caduceus Cellars brands with a group of people who taught me so much in the cellar.  I would not be where I am without their patience.  Then one day Kent Callaghan was looking for a harvest intern and asked if I could suggest anyone.  I said ME, of course!  Sonoita harvest is a good month behind the Willcox and the Verde Valley, which meant essentially working 2 harvests back-to-back.  To say it kicked my ass is an understatement.  I had to dig very deep to get through those 12 weeks.  I was so thankful for the opportunities to work with the Merkin and Caduceus crew and then go down and work with Kent and Lisa Callaghan.  These are my people, my tribe.  I would show up for any of them. 

After that 2018 harvest, Kent gave me the confidence to make wine.  He said, "You're ready." The opportunity with Kent parlayed into working with a vineyard owners by the name of Mark Caretto, Kat & George Whitmill in Sonoita and Todd and Michelle Meyer out in Willcox the following year.  Kent introduced me to his friends and fellow growers and split his share of fruit with me.  By that time we had bought 54 acres in Sonoita and started building a 40 x 60 metal building on it.  I thought we would plant the following year and the building would house the tractor and our heads in beds on the weekends while we were down working.  Turned out that building was going to become a boutique commercial winery and the future home of Vino Bandito de Sonoita.  

Feb 9, 2021 at 3:18 PM Permalink Comments (42)

Shingles Made Me Do It

Let me paint the two people who will read this blog post with a picture. The year is 2014.  I have a 2 year old, 3 year old, 10 year old and 14 year old. I am a VP of Marketing at a mobile payment processing company that also has a couponing app.  I have been working in technology since 2005 as a New Media Director for a renewable energy company, in marketing for an Digital Ad Agency, I was a Marketing Director at an internet radio company etc...you get the jist.  Prior to that I was an volleyball player at Saint Mary's College of California (Go Gaels!) where my degree was in Maritime Archaeology (yes that is a real thing) where I spent my summers diving on ship wrecks in the Caribbean and Bermuda.  I thought I would get my masters in Archaeology and live the life of academia, but I had the opportunity to continue playing volleyball and moved to Spain to pursue that dream. 

Once my body had had enough, chronic stress fractures and hernias being the culprits, I came home and just really needed to work.  Ape and Greg (my parents) said "Um no, we aren't going to pay for graduate school.  Get a job." So I settled down and started working.  Marketing & technology is where I fell.  At first, I was all about being a working professional, but life at a computer is just simply not for me.  All this back story is to show, I don't sit well, especially for hours and hours a day.  It's not in my genetic makeup.  I move. 

So fast forward to 2014.  I'm working 60 hours a week, I have nannies raising my kids (who were/are wonderful and I love so much) and I hated my life.  One Sunday afternoon, my 2 year old was on my lap and reared up and popped me in the eye with the back of her head.  I knew it was going to be bad...it was really GNARLY pretty quickly.  I thought I broke my ocular bone.  It hurt and it hurt and kept on hurting, for days.  It just didn't seem like it was getting better.  So I went to Urgent Care and the NP took one look at me and the odd rash that was forming on my head, cheek and neck and said I had shingles.  Son of a b*%$#!  I couldn't lay on that side of my head or brush my hair for MONTHS.  That's what broke me.  I quit my job.  Told my husband I wanted to do something totally different. 

We have a painting of a vineyard on our wall in our bedroom I look at every night and morning.  It's a farmhouse on a hill with the beautiful rows of vines in the foreground.  I looks like it's in Italy or Croatia, somewhere around the Adriatic.  I brings me peace to stare at it.  Plus we had always wanted to buy some acreage and live on a farm.  Maybe I could take some classes on viticulture and we would move to Oregon or Washington and have a little vineyard and farm.  So I started researching programs and learned we grow wine in Arizona!  I took some classes online with UC Davis, but it wasn't hands-on enough for me, but the Arizona specific program was a 2 hour drive north in Clarkdale, AZ.  After looking at the program I realized I could do all my classes on one day of the week along with my practicum hours.  So that's what I did.  Packed all my classes into one day/night and volunteered in vineyards & wineries around the Verde Valley in my off hours.  It took me 3 years to graduate a 2 year program, but I graduated Magna Cum Laude.  My mom said I needed to study wine in order to get grades like that.  Ha!  So when I think about where I am today, I blame shingles.  Shingles broke me, made me reevaluate who I am, what I like to do, and forced me to make a hard left turn, when I could have stayed on a more "normal" road.

Feb 9, 2021 at 1:42 PM Permalink Comments (336)