Whipsmart Wine Company

Whipsmart Wine Company is a micro-winery located in Sonoma County, California. Our mission is to provide tasty, honest wine from unique old-vine and interesting vineyards. By focusing on the vineyards that are the heritage of California we hope to help maintain these vineyards and provide you with unique examples of how wine can express a sense of place.

I founded Whipsmart Wine Company in 2015 to further hone my craft and to provide people with interesting wines from some of the finest vineyards of California.

My journey through winemaking is a relatively young one. In a previous life I worked as an attorney at a “white shoe” law firm in Washington, DC. In 2010 I made the decision to leave the life of an attorney and follow a dream to make wine. That dream took me to Australia and South Africa, eventually setting me here in Sonoma County. During that time I have had the opportunity to meet wonderful people, learn from top-notch winemakers, and work with some of California’s greatest vineyards.

While I traded in my suits and dress shoes for cargo pants and work boots, the lessons of my former life remain. Most important was the lesson that the little things matter. The difference between a good wine and a great wine is often the care and attention paid. Excellent grapes don’t automatically result in excellent wine but require a nurturing hand from someone who is acutely aware of the process and makes dozens or hundreds of decisions, both small and large. In that regard, I start with the best and most interesting grapes I can find (and afford) and listen to what they have to say. When the grapes come into the winery they whisper at what they can become. They hint at a number of possibilities — some desirable and some quite undesirable. I strive to hear the grapes and to use my skill to create what, to me, is the best possible wine.

My day jobs at some of California’s finest wineries, in addition to providing me with an unparalleled education in winemaking, tickled my creative self by showing me the sheer quality of old-vine fruit available in the state. Intrepid farmers have been planting vineyards in California since the mid-1800s. Those vineyards that have survived suburban sprawl, replanting, and pressure from more lucrative crops (some recently made legal in the state) are the wine industry’s living heritage. There is a reason that these vineyards have survived to this day — the quality of fruit from those vines is excellent. And most importantly, they make delicious and distinctive wine.

You may notice that, except for the story on this page, I use the term “we” and “our” when discussing the wines and winemaking. I do this because winemaking is a collective endeavor. Someone scouted the site of the vineyard and prepared the land many years ago. Someone else probably planted and nurtured the vines over the years. A vineyard team pruned and tended the vines leading up to harvest. A collective decision was made about when picking could and should happen. A group of hard working individuals did the back-breaking work of hand picking the grapes. The grapes were sorted and fermentation tended to by a dedicated team. The lab folks at ETS did the analysis that informed my decisions. Etc. I hope you get the point. For anyone to call a wine exclusively “his” or “hers” is the height of narcissism.

Author: Caroline Porsiel