Your background was studying biochemistry. How did you come to the realization that you wanted to make wine for a living? Did one thing have anything to do with the other?

“No, absolutely nothing. I studied organic chemistry in college for my undergraduate degree. And I had no professional goals at that point whatsoever. I didn't know what I wanted to be. But as the semesters went by and the classes were getting progressively more difficult, most of the students were more pre-med and pre-dental, and I was getting more and more terrified. But I was also working in restaurants and the wine director where I was working said, ‘Why don't you work in a winery lab?’ And I was like, ‘What in the world is a winery lab?’

“And so I looked into it and I got a job out in California at a winery for the harvest season. I was hired as a lab tech to just do the very basic chemistry. But the oenologist, the woman who ran the lab, told me, ‘I hired you because you're a waitress. I wanted someone who knew enough about chemistry to be able to do simple things here in the lab, but I needed someone who could multitask, and restaurant people are people who are really organized and can get things done.’

“I decided to go into it just because, honestly, a winery smells so good. That was my first impression…’This place smells amazing. What do they do here?’ And they're like, ‘Ah, those are barrels, and there's a bunch of wine in there,’ and I was just completely fascinated. It's like when you walk into a restaurant for work and you just want to be in the room because it smells so good. And it was that aroma that kicked it off for me.”

For a long time, you've been known as the only American female winemaker in Bordeaux. Is this still the case? And how do you split your time between France and the US?

“I think I still am. I haven't really checked, but I think so. But I didn't set out to blaze any trail. I actually only wanted to work in Bordeaux to have it as a mark on my resume, because I thought it would look really impressive. And I thought I was just gonna go over, do this apprenticeship, and then leave, and I'd never go back. And now I've been there for 22 years. I've been working with same people. I still have all the same colleagues and all the guys I work with are the same people I started with. And I love the wine, and I love the people, and it's so funny, because I didn't think I would like it at all.

“From my young perspective, at that time, I thought, ‘Oh, Bordeaux is just expensive,’ and it's just all this classified stuff, and that's not my thing. And Bordeaux's huge. So there's other really great, delicious, affordable, organic wine. And I love who I work with, so it just worked out.

“I travel on an American passport. And honestly, (the travel) changes with every vintage. It depends on where I am and what's going on, and there's a lot of bouncing back and forth. There's no set schedule. There are certain times of year I need to be in the US, and I also work in Spain, so I never know. There are moments of the year that I carve out and are permanent. But then everything else is…I just sort of float. I was just able to come to Vermont last week for 5 days, which is spectacular. And then I go to North Carolina for a bunch of trade events and things like that. Wherever I need to be, that's where we go.

If there’s something you want people to know about your wine, what would it be?

“I guess that there's no ego in it in any of it. And I think that wine can sometimes be really intimidating, especially to the younger crowd, unless you grow up with it. And I definitely did not grow up with it. My family is not from a wine drinking background or, especially, winemaking. For me, I would like people to know that there's just absolutely no ego in any of it.

“They're also meant to be affordable, and just taste like where they come from, and they're just wines for everybody to enjoy, like ‘everyday’ drinking. It's not ‘Oh, this is only a special occasion wine,’ or trying to make things that get top scores or this or that. It's like making lunch.

“Also, they're very low- to no intervention wines. I don't do any adjustments, like adding tannin and adding flavor, tweaking the wine in a way that's going to perfect its imperfections. We don't do any of that. I think that's how I got started, and I think that's my business model…to make affordable, approachable, everyday drinking wine that's good for you and doesn't give you a headache.

“We're the only industry that doesn't have to put our ingredients on the labels. And there's wine like mine that doesn't have anything in it, and then there's stuff that has all kinds of things in it. And then people wonder why they get headaches…’Why do I have a headache? It's the sulfur.’ I'm like, ‘No, it's the other 17 things in it.’ And so I think that that's really important for people to understand that there is wine out there that you can enjoy.”

Bonus Question: You were a bartender in Boston. Do you still mix a mean cocktail? What's your favorite?

“I would say something probably along the lines of maybe a Negroni. I really love vermouth, and I love all of those really delicious Amaros and all of those things. I love the flavor of them and the bitterness of them. I think they're delicious.”