Behind the vine

Jenny Mosbacher - Fossil & Fawn - Willamette Valley, Oregon, USA

When do you think you fell in love with wine, enough to make a career of it?

My wine journey began by accident. I had graduated with an art degree, but I knew that launching an art career was quite difficult, so I found week-end work in a tasting room at Ponzi Vineyards - a well-known family vineyard in Oregon. At that point I was acquainted with wine as much as any American college student, which is to say not a lot, so this was a big change. My initial 'aha' wine wasn't anything super extravagant, but they were selling a 2004 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. It was a real Oregon vintage: there had been ups and downs, poor fruit set, heat in the summer, but as a result of all those mishaps it was a vintage that produced wines that had great balance. Tasting it, that was my first understanding of terroir - the idea of tasting a wine and knowing where it was grown. I could look out the window and see the vines right there and understand what the vineyard smells like in the morning - the woodsy character with mushroom funk, and how that came into the wine.

I got a crash course in real wine working there, and I realised that there were a lot of parallels to what I loved about studying and making art and the wine world. Both are connected to culture, nature and history and encompass technical skill, socio-cultural dynamics and the experiential nature of tasting. That just really appealed to the way my brain works, and it was really non-stop from there. I became really interested in learning about the history of the region, about how the wine is made - because all of those aspects informed my ability to sell it! That became a positive feedback loop, the more I could talk about wine, the more I could raise consumers' interests. During harvest time you can pitch in for harvest duties (sorting fruit, loading bins) which unlocked the next bit of knowledge of hands-on experience of how wine is made.

Then in 2010 I met my partner, Jim, and his family had a vineyard site. He had helped plant the vineyard and his dad was growing this impeccable fruit. But, there was a missing link of how to bring the fruit to market, because at that time it was being sold and blended away. Armed with just enough information to be dangerous, we had the idea that we should make wine - a small run of single vineyard production from his dad’s site that we could offer to winemakers as proof of concept to prove the quality of the grapes. He and I both had harvest experience, some wine education credentials, and that was enough for us to go for it.

What story does your wine tell?

The story we always want to tell is that of the place and time. We aim to make wine in such a fashion that you're honestly reflecting the place and year and that means it can swing wildly between record breaking years of cold (like 2011), or a vintage that’s so hot that the wine is a lot more powerful.

We started as 'estate grown' - only producing wine from his parent's vineyard - so the story was the vineyard. We have great grapes, and our job is not to screw them up. You can't make a wine something that it isn't. You always have to honor the grapes as you’re making the wine. There will always be a winemaker's hand in it, but we focus on making a wine that is low-intervention so you let the vineyard and vintage speak.

As we grew as winemakers and a business, we wanted to expand. So we started to produce Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. It’s fun because it was an artistic challenge of taking two varietals and making more than two wines. We still used the restraint of respect for the grapes, but expanded our product lines and abilities by working with other sites. The story took a turn from being specific to one place to being about different places or the Willamette Valley as a whole. That experimentation gave us the ability to exercise creative license.

Our motto for the winery is ‘Get weird. Suck less.’ Get weird is easier to achieve. The wines are still representative of time and place, but there are wines that are more stylistically forward. We have a core of seriousness of time and terroir, but we also want to have fun.

What misconceptions about wine do you think people should forget?

There is a long history of wine being an elite beverage. Only enjoyed by people who can afford it, have been trained it in, but that's so stifling. For some people, you can enjoy wine more because of the knowledge involved, but it doesn't always need to be an intellectual pursuit. You're allowed to enjoy wine for pleasure. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have care and responsibility in choosing wines that are grown and made in good ways, but you don't need a profound wine in every wine drinking occasion.

What great things about wine do you think people should remember?

The best wines are representative of time and place, and, that you can take a bottle of wine, regardless of its cost or conceptual pedigree, and you can make a special moment and memory out of it.

What is a piece of advice you would give to a woman interested in breaking into the wine world?

I would say: if you want it, do it. The wonderful thing about the wine world is that it is so large and encompasses so many things. So, don't be afraid to wander a winding path. I got started in a tasting room which led me into production experience and then making my own wine. The wine world is not simply divided into hospitality, sales, production, etc. There’s so much out there. You can find your niche.

Try different things, different jobs, and work for different people. I've spoken with other women who have had bad experiences in bad jobs, and it almost turned them off, but it would be so sad to me if those women were not a part of our industry because of one bad experience. Like anything, there will be places you fit in better than other, but nothing should be a roadblock. If something isn’t a good fit, try something else.

Who is a woman in wine you admire and think everyone should know about?

Coming up in Oregon wine when I did, someone who was a big influence for me was Patricia Green (Patricia Green Cellars), who died a few years ago. She was a wild trailblazer in Oregon wine. She got started in the early 90s, when there weren't a lot of women in wine here. She launched her own wine brand in the early 2000s, and she was always herself. She had a motto/slogan: Women taste better. She was very cheeky, always herself, and a phenomenal, intuitive winemaker - working in a natural style before there was a category around it. She’s a deep part of Oregon history, but not a name that a lot of newer winemakers would be familiar with.

Where can women find your wine?

We’re only available in the US, and are distributed in a dozen states. You can find a list of distributors here.