Behind the vine
Kate Michaud - Double Canyon - Washington, USA
When do you think you fell in love with wine, enough to make a career of it?
Within minutes of working in a winery my first day. I ended up with a job at a winery almost accidentally at a cross roads in my life and fell deeply for how clear and understandable the progress is in making wine. Being charged with making all the decisions from picking a block of grapes to ushering a wine to bottle a year and a half later and all the steps in between feel consequential in shaping the wine, which in turn feels like decisions you need to weigh. It is that process of weighing ideal vs. pragmatic and factoring in how that might impact the wine that I love. It is equal parts organization and hard, long, but fulfilling work and some innate leaps in blending that you have to trust . There is an acceptance and resignation that because of the rhythm of our work that the learnings are worked out over years and that is both satisfying and masochistic.
What story does your wine tell?
The story we are telling at Double Canyon is one of being comfortable with the long game. The journey and learnings that help us build onto our wines vintage on vintage get us out of bed every day. We get to work out and explore a concept to fruition until another learning piques our interest. We are a Cabernet Sauvignon house and like all wineries are successful if we bring our cab sites/ vineyards to their fullest potential. There is no opportunity to drop the ball but many spaces to shape. I like the idea that making wine is about how to create a sum that is more than the parts, but also that something philosophical has happened along the way. In that way It is whole.
“I didn’t have that magic moment lifting a glass to my lips with epiphany. What did catch my attention was that working in wine could be a career framed around making/doing. I have always found myself making things. “Making” fills a box for me. That it could be wine and could be a career sounded fantastic, and has been.”
- Kate Michaud
What misconceptions about wine do you think people should forget?
That wine has to be any more than I like it or I don’t. The conundrum is that wine with context (knowledge of brand, intent or area/terrior) brings new appreciation to the vision or manifestation of the wine. It is like watching the special feature section on a Wes Anderson film. The brilliance of the film, all the deliberate details, aren’t quite as appreciated without some context or explanation of vision. So be flexible. Sometimes it is about appreciating that context that brings new awareness to that bottle. Sometimes, probably mostly, wine drunk without context is a solid choice too.
What great things about wine do you think people should remember?
That wine has an arc. It is a glimmer and then young. It matures, complexes, ages and then declines and each step has its own beauty.
How radically a wine evolves in a glass with time or how impacted a wine is by temperature and how worth it and also confounding it is considering the wine is in each of those states.
That the fun part of the job is connecting the dots. There are these little blinks of insight in this sensory world, these aha moments when it becomes clear this block of grapes marries this very specific barrel perfectly like peanut butter and jelly. It feels like a satisfying win, but these wins are dynamic because what works one year may or may not the next.
What is a piece of advice you would give to a woman interested in breaking into the wine world?
For production get your hands dirty, be willing to do ALL the jobs earnestly. Work as many harvests as makes sense for your life around the world to get perspective quickly. Be thoughtful about how each step impacts the next. Connect the dots. Ask good questions. Find a mentor and figure out the constraints of our industry and how they fit in your life.
Who is a woman in wine you think everyone should know about?
I don’t know Maggie Harrison, winemaker at Antica Terra, but I feel deeply drawn to her/their approach, which is one of keeping your head down, and working out a vision. I admire that they intertwine and breathe art and wine as one and that the road is long and windy, open with possibility and paths taken or abandoned, all of which is considered not just progress but a win.
Where can women find your wine?
In the UK, we’re available at Wanderlust Wine. In the US, you can buy directly from our site.