They had actually participated in white wine tastings in Gainesville and when explored a winery that exposed them to the background of wine making. Not fans of humidity, alligators, and mosquitoes, they were seeking to leave Gainesville anyhow, and the trip to Napa opened them to brand-new possibilities.
“We believed, ‘OK, we have forestry degrees. It’s plant science. Viticulture is not exactly the same thing, but they’re very similar,'” Shawna said. “I obtained a job and came out to work the harvest season, and he [Zak] was type of like, ‘Oh yeah, whatever. I’ll see how it goes.’ Then after working in a winery, he got the bug, too.”
“She liked it and wished to come out, and I was like, ‘Alright, let’s do it,'” Zak stated. “I don’t think we meant to stay. I don’t think we even thought about that was an alternative. We just thought it ‘d be enjoyable for the harvest or something for possibly a year. Stars were aligned, and here we are still 16 years later on.”
Their aspirations could have passed away on the vine in a competitive market that produced a $276 billion impact on the American economy this past year, according to WineAmerica. Rather, they grew.
When they first arrived in Napa, they took seasonal positions, and then they ventured all over the world. They both worked seasonal tasks in New Zealand, where the harvest season is the reverse of the United States’, and later Shawna aided with a harvest in Australia. When she went back to Napa, she accepted a full-time position at a local winery, where she operated in a laboratory monitoring the fermentation procedure. Zak, on the other hand, went and helped with a harvest in Chile.
“We simply kept going and going and going, and every harvest, you learn something new,” Shawna stated. “Every harvest is different because all the other aspects of weather and this and the other are constantly various every year. It keeps things fascinating, for sure.”
Upon his return from Chile, Zak landed a job with Domaine Carneros, a high-end winery that focuses on champagnes, and he has been there ever since. Shawna earned her extension wine making certificate from the University of California Davis and worked for a number of different wineries prior to landing a position with Luna Vineyards that permitted her to run the wine making operation, which she provided for around a years.
That task likewise offered them with a big chance.
The owner of Luna Vineyards passed away suddenly early in 2015, and the family required to sell the winery quickly. Shawna saw this as an opportunity to turn her success at Luna into a venture of her own. With their support, she worked out an arrangement with the household to obtain a few of the wine in the cellar to start her own brand name, Earthshine Red wines.