Applied for a "Warm Body" Job 1995. Now He Runs a World-Class Winery Pt. 1-9
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome
to the best five-minute wine
podcast with Forrest Cali.
Eighteen years old, fresh out of high school, expecting hard labor. What our guests got instead was a passport to the world. One harvest at a time. Hi,
I'm Justin Ennis. I am Senior Director of Winemaking for Joseph Phelps Vineyard is in Sonoma County, and I'm responsible for our Sonoma Coast wines with the Freestone brand. I've been with Joseph Phelps Freestone for twenty years.
What happened in your upbringing or things and said, I'm digging this wine thing?
How did Justin’s family background shape his early exposure to wine?
So for me, I was born and raised in Sonoma County. So wine in the vineyards and wineries was always around in kind of in the peripheral vision of my life. Um my grandfather on my dad's side was very much a wine lover and loved to have wine on the table. And so I was the and and then on my mother's side, they lived up in Hillsburg, uh in the heart of Russian River. They had a old vineyard on their their property. Uh an old field planted vineyard uh from the early days. So it was always kind of around me. Uh I never really considered it as a career until my stepfather actually, he was in the wine industry working for Kennel Jackson at a place called Hartford Court, or now it's called Hartford Family Winery.
And he was in facilities and he was like, Hey Look, you know, uh you're out you're out of high school, um, they pay really well. You can start as a harvest intern, you you know, you work these long hours, um, and you know, you help make the wine, and I was like, Okay, sure, I'll try that. And so my first vintage was in nineteen ninety five at Hartford Court. Uh Dan Goldfield was the winemaker, and I completely We fell into it by luck.
What led Justin to take a harvest‑intern job in 1995 and what was his first vintage like?
And uh that very first year I was just uh totally in love with it. Uh and what I was most attracted to, because I was only 18 years old, uh, or I guess, you know, as harvest went on, I turned nineteen, um, was all the people that I met from around the world. So that very first harvest I we worked with two gentlemen from Portugal, uh, two guys from France, a woman from Australia. And it really quickly became apparent to me that the the the camaraderie, the teamwork, the people, it really opened my eyes to the greater wire wider world. You know, I think that Sonoma County is fairly insular. Uh so it was eye opening to me that like I could do a job like harvest or winemaking and I could go see the world.
And so uh that's essentially
If you're working in the field, how are you coming in ton contact? You know, how do you get from
Yes. We were hired as cellar interns or cellar help. So we weren't working out in the actual vineyard itself. We were working within the winery, bringing as fruit came in to process it and put it into tank to ferment it, to turn it into wine. I just happened to apply for the job. They need a they need warm bodies. They teach you everything you need to learn, you know, like Power washing and cleaning and this is not very glamorous, like the early work. So you you I just learned on the job and so that's how I met them. So all these uh foreigners would apply through for a visa and they would apply with an for an ag visa. There's a a group called C A E P uh which is a um agriculture exchange program that's run out of the United States and a lot of people still
To this day, utilize CAEP to get their visas, uh, like I did uh later in my career when I went to uh New Zealand um to help me secure my visa so that you can go and do this agriculture exchange and work. And so they were in the United States for that reason to learn winemaking in the United States uh for a season for a harvest. So we were seller apps. And that meant we processed. Process fruit, we would do punch downs, we would do barrel cleaning, we w all all the all the stuff that it takes to make wine. You know, I don't know where and when and where the exchange kind of program started, but it's um there's technique and processes that are used in winemaking all over the world. Right. I think it's just uh was born out of wanting to share knowledge and also show
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:03–0:43
2
How did Justin’s family background shape his early exposure to wine?
0:43–2:01
3
What led Justin to take a harvest‑intern job in 1995 and what was his first vintage like?
2:01–6:34
4
How did the CAEP agricultural exchange program expand Justin’s view of winemaking?
6:34–13:33
5
What core philosophy guides Justin’s low‑intervention, site‑driven winemaking?
13:33–21:02
6
How do the Pastoral and Quarter Moon vineyards differ in terroir and flavor profile?
21:02–30:11
7
What impact did the 2017 and 2020 wildfires have on Freestone’s vineyards and production?
30:11–36:07
8
How is AI being considered for both business and winemaking processes at Freestone?
36:07–41:00
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast
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