Winemaker Kevin's Origin Story

In my early 20s, I entered the wine industry hesitantly. I felt like Jack entering the ballroom on the Titanic. It wasn’t my scene, I hated the snobbery and old-boys club vibe, the formality & falseness. I am not from that world. 

At age 8, I was walking the long way home from school to dodge the crack dealer who daily harassed me to “just give it a try,” and had learned to stay away from the needles littering the sidewalks. At age 16, I declined invitations from my friends Manuel and Hakeem to join the Bloods, preferring to play basketball and street football instead. Needless to say, wine and sommeliers were not on my radar. 

I was an incredibly eccentric, awkward, geeky teen growing up in the working-class ghettos of Oak Park and South Sacramento, and I was just glad to survive my teenage years intact. I fantacized about leaving the ghetto, leaving Sacramento, and traveling the world, but had no idea how to accomplish that. Maybe become a merchant marine or pirate?

I wasn’t even going to attend University, because we couldn’t afford it. We grew up rich in many ways--our home was full of books, organic fruit & veggies from the garden, and family--but we also lived well below the poverty line for most of my childhood. My father was a laborer and fruit picker in vineyards and orchards when I was born, my mom was putting herself through nursing school, and we were a working class family at best throughout my childhood. I was proud of my hard-working and loving parents, but times were hard by any measure.

So when I was granted a Regent’s Scholarship to UC Davis for my high grades, test scores & sports, it absolutely changed the path of my life. The scholarship covered my entire tuition and living expenses; I was leaving Sacramento and going to university. 

So I went to UC Davis, and as a young and passionate environmentalist I decided to take on a double focus in Journalism and Conservation Biology, with the intent of saving the world. After 3 years I was only a few classes from graduating in Conservation Biology when I went overseas to Australia to see a bit of the world and learn about tropical biology & marine ecology with 2 semesters abroad. During that trip, my life changed. Two things happened: the urge to travel that I’d had since I was a teen was rekindled, and I took on a job as an illegal laborer in a vineyard. 

I had been having a grand old time in Australia at “Uni,” their name for college. I was getting drunk, tidepooling and scuba diving and roadtripping. It was fun and all, but I was uninspired. I had come to the conclusion that marine biology and environmental studies was more of a passion for me, and not a profession.

So I dropped out of my degree program and hitched a ride with a classmate to the middle of nowhere, her hometown of Emerald, Australia. Her family took me in, fed me, gave me a place to sleep, and let me help out on their family farm for a couple of weeks to pay for my room & board. They were incredibly gracious, and put the word out among other local farmers. 

A couple of weeks into my stay, her father introduced me to his friend, who ran labor crews working on vineyards, pruning the vines. It was the worst paying, hardest work in town short of working in the mines, which is the only reason why they had to hire illegal workers and pay cash-in-hand, and why I could get the job. I happily agreed and thanked them heartily. 

In Australia, they don’t have enough domestic workforce, and immigrants from Asia are not sufficient to meet agricultural labor demands. In the US, these kind of agricultural jobs are usually done by Mexican immigrants, who are critical to our agriculture and without whom the US agricultural system would collapse. In Australia, they hire Asian and Pacific Islander immigrants, college students and backpackers willing to take cash-in-hand under the table for the illegal, back-breaking work. 

At first, I was terrible at it. The agile and experienced hands of the Pacific Islanders and Asian immigrants expertly pruned vine after vine with breakneck speed. My speed was more “break-finger” because even at my slow pace I kept clipping and cutting my fingers, and ended the first day covered in knicks and bruises. The only person I went faster than was the other backpacker, who was stoned off his ass and didn’t seem to care if he kept the job. Nice guy though. I shared some of his last joint with him after the shift. 

Next day, I came back with renewed energy. I’m stubborn, and after years of school and studying, I found this sort of manual labor invigorating. I loved the challenge of mastering a simple task. The best workers, I saw, weren’t just the fastest, but the most focused, those who made exactly the right clips and wasted no effort. Their skill was practiced, elegant. I watched them closely and did my best to emulate them. 

By the end of the month, the labor boss was putting me on his best jobs and had upped my pay. I was starting to be accepted by the other workers, and I ate my lunches with the islanders and Asians instead of the backpackers. It was a reprieve from the stresses and dramas of college life, and a world apart from the rough ghetto and fractious family life of my childhood. I felt at home, more than I had in a long time. 

Which made it all the harder when I told the boss that I was leaving. I was on the last weeks of my student visa, after which I would not only be illegal to work, but illegal to stay in the country. I would get jailed & deported if anyone found me, and I wasn’t keen on that, so it was off to Sydney International Airport and back home to the USA. 

The last few weeks of my stay in Australia, a brief stay in Sydney, could fill many pages. Living in the prostitution district of Kings Cross, finding illegal odd jobs, having near threesomes in alleyways, drunk nights in the clubs, hitch-hiking and more...it was memorable to say the least. But that’s a story for another day. 

Today, my point is to say, that those weeks in Emerald Australia working as an illegal farm laborer turned my mind and life in a new direction. For the first time ever, I saw the wine industry from a different angle. Not that of the rich winery owner or the snobby consumer, but instead from the point of view of the illegal immigrant doing a rough, hot, sweaty, low-paid job and taking great satisfaction in doing that job well. 

It gave me perspective on the work my father had done when I was younger, working low-paying jobs in the fields picking fruit and working the orchards and vineyards. My pride in my father and our agricultural roots grew out of that experience. 

I came back home and visited some wineries. During these visits, I snuck into the vineyards and wineries and met the men and women behind the scenes. I caught a glimpse of the real world of winemaking. It brought together my love of nature, my childhood working on gardens & farms, and my family’s heritage of craftsmanship into something that I felt an addictive pull towards. And it was an industry full of fun, passionate people. I was hooked.   

I immediately transferred into the Viticulture & Enology program at UC Davis, even though it meant I would have to stay an extra year, and wouldn’t be covered by my scholarship. I took on extra jobs and paid my way through the rest of school, and as soon as I graduated I hit the road, working apprenticeships around the world at wineries in Australia, Oregon, Argentina, Sonoma, and New Zealand to learn the craft of winemaking amidst world-traveling adventures. I learned that the cellars of the finest wineries of the world are staffed by crass, shit-talking, wild, hard-drinking, weed-smoking, passionate men and women who have dedicated their lives to making some kick ass wine. I loved it. 

This side of the industry that I have come to love bears little resemblance to the common perception of the wine world, the perception I had before I experienced the world behind the curtains. Behind all the fancy chateaus and chandeliers and invite-only pairing dinners is a magical world of craftsmen and working-class people, immigrants and dedicated professionals. 

I realized that winemaking was really agriculture and craftsmanship. It tied together my influences, and offered me a way to integrate my environmentalism as well: someday, I dreamed, I would start an organic winery, that donated to charities, that spread the good word of environmentalism, sustainability, organic and natural agriculture and living. It was a job I could do with passion, while also creating some virtuous cycles and contributing to the positive direction of the earth. 

This is where I am coming from in my launch of Voluptuary Wine & Lucid Wine. I am now 37 years old, a skilled craftsman from a working-class background who traveled the world and worked my ass off to get where I’m at. I am a passionate and hard-working person bootstrapping my way up, forming a company from my meager savings so that I can help lead the revolution in wine and business. To craft wine that is delicious, innovative, sustainable, healthy, and meaningful. 

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This is where I am coming from in my launch of Voluptuary Wine & Lucid Wine. I am a skilled craftsman from a working-class background who traveled the world and worked my ass off to get where I’m at. I’m not a 1%er with a trophy winery. I’m a passionate millennial bootstrapping my way up, forming a company from my meager savings so that I can help lead the revolution in wine. To craft wine that is delicious, innovative, sustainable, healthy, and meaningful. I’m pointedly ignoring the conventions of the old-world of traditionalist wine, instead indulging every crazy idea I have, to ignore what the wine industry says must be done, instead following my gut and making wine that stands out. I don’t care if I waste all of my money and go out of business in a few years. My goal is NOT commercial success nor industry accolades. My goal is to push the boundaries of winemaking, to explore styles and techniques and extremes of sustainability that no one else will do because it’s too fucking crazy. Everyone keeps warning me that to do this will ruin me, blacklist me, no one will hire me again. I don’t care, and such responses only harden my resolve. I’d rather have done this, to have created unique and delicious impossible wines, and end up hitting rock bottom, than just walk the line and make the same tired old recipe wines that all the automaton traditionalists are doing at the established, famous wineries. 

My goal is to create wine for everyone, not just the elite few. But not the lab-created industrial juice made by the big corporations that make 85% of the wine produced today (5 companies make most of the wine you see in the supermarket). I’m talking delicious, sustainably grown and made, healthy, small batch wine with craftsmanship that most importantly is delicious and different. 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate tradition nor lack in appreciation for those who paved this path. I have massive respect and appreciation for the first women who gathered grapes and crushed them, discovering wine. For the many men and women who refined the art. In fact, their innovations are the basis of what we now call traditional winemaking. Tradition is innovation from someone who came before us. I respect their spirit of innovation and craftsmanship, and strive to carry on both their dedication to the craft and this innovative passion. I strive to do honor to them by continuing to innovate and elevate the art.