2023 MWC Election Ballot and Candidates

Bio:

I grew up in Northern California, surrounded by winegrowing and winemaking. During high school, my first job was working on a bottling line after school. I always had an interest in foraging for wild plants and fermentation. It started with kombucha brewing, which then led to homebrewing, and eventually, I fell in love with winemaking.

After high school, I initially pursued theology in college, but upon graduation, I realized it wasn’t the path I wanted to continue on. Instead, I spent the next four years touring the country as a hardcore musician. However, the demands of the road eventually wore me out, and I knew I needed to find something else that would allow me to stay creative.

That’s when I landed a job as an enologist at Steele Wines in Lake County, CA. While working there, I enrolled in courses at Santa Rosa Junior College and the UC Davis extension for Enology. Under the mentorship of Jed Steele, an innovator in low-intervention winemaking, I worked my way up to the position of Assistant Winemaker at Steele Wines.

However, Michigan started calling my name when my wife decided to move there. I joined Lawton Ridge Winery as an assistant winemaker and truly fell in love with cool-climate winemaking and viticulture. Eventually, an opportunity arose to return to California and work at Duckhorn Wines. We packed up and made our way back.

During my time in California, I was approached by the owners of Modales with a proposition to move back and help start a new winery in the Fennville AVA. We seized the opportunity, returned to Michigan, and broke ground on Modales in 2018. Since then, we have been focused on innovation and approaching winemaking in Southwest Michigan from a fresh perspective.

At Modales, we have made significant changes to our winemaking practices. We have converted 90% of our processes to Native Fermentations, adopting a hands-off approach. Additionally, witnessing the decline of our vineyard soils, we decided to transition to organic viticulture. We are working towards certifying all of our vineyards in 2024.

I firmly believe that a “shades of green” revolution, as Dave Bos would say, is coming to Michigan. We strive to be an example of what regenerative farming can look like on a commercial scale.