Ahead of Her Time: Kathleen Inman

My first vintage was 2002. There was a tiny crop of Pinot Gris at our young Olivet Grange vineyard (OGV), and I also bought a tiny amount of Pinot Gris from Saralee Kunde. The total production was just 90 cases. I sold the tiny lot of Pinot Noir from OGV that year to my friends Adam Lee and Dianna Novy, who had Siduri wines then, to help pay for the expenses of making the Pinot Gris.

Growing up in the Napa Valley, I was aware of the growing wine industry at the beginning of the 1980’s, but I knew no one in the industry. It was at University of California at Santa Barbara that I joined a wine-tasting group. There, I discovered how different one grape variety could be when grown in different parts of the world. I became obsessed with learning more. How endlessly fascinating, I thought.

This epiphany made me decide to find a summer job at a winery. My first job was at Napa Creek Winery in St Helena, which was later the site of Kent Rasmussen’s winery on Silverado Trail. My summer winery job taught me a lot. Actually, I was resigned to never work in the wine industry again. As they say, winemaking is mostly moving heavy things around, cleaning things!

My career prior to wine was in business: I have an MBA from the University of Bradford Management Center.  Initially, I trained as an accountant at Price Waterhouse, then worked in corporate finance. After my second daughter was born, I moved into executive search and recruited senior people mostly in corporate finance and consulting.

All along, my passion outside of my career was organic gardening, wine, and food. In 1998, when our family moved back to California from the United Kingdom, I was able to combine my business skills with my love of growing things and making food – and wine – for people to enjoy.

I am so proud of my eco-ethics driving my business, winemaking, and grape-growing decisions. In addition to my 100% biodegradable packaging for shipping, recycled, light weight, domestically produced glass, and natural winemaking techniques (which I think help to make the true character of the grapes shine through), I work hard to solve every farming need at the Olivet Grange with a solution that not only produces excellent quality wine grapes, but also enriches the environment around us.

Although when I built the winery I had some resistance from the County in respect of some of the innovative eco-solutions I wanted to implement, but overall, I have found great acceptance and appreciation for what I have done over the years. I do find it frustrating that eco-friendly solutions usually end up being more expensive for my business and other wineries can reap extra profits by going the non-sustainable, cheaper route. But I also like sleeping at night and this work to minimize my carbon footprint helps with that.

My vineyard was among the first vineyards to be self-certified as sustainable by California Association of Winegrape Growers (CAWG), and then later by a third party in 2016. The winery is 100% solar powered. In addition, the winery’s forklift, power washer, steam generator, and water heaters are all electric, with no propane, gas or diesel used on site; therefore, no pollution comes from those sources. We reuse all of our waste water and have 16,000 gallons of storage for wastewater. We use steam to clean and sanitize in the winery, because using steam to clean a barrel uses only six gallons of water, compared to using hot water, which can use up to 60 gallons.

When we built the winery, we used as much repurposed and recycled materials as possible to try to reduce our impact on the environment. All of the wood and cabinets in the tasting room come from the old barn we took down to build the winery and the counters are made of recycled glass. It’s been fun to push the limits and see what else we can do each year.

My first mentor was Kevin Hamel, who was the winemaker at Preston Vineyards when I met him. This was very quickly followed by Penny Gadd Coster (then at J Vineyards), who provided helpful advice with my first Pinot Gris. Years later, in 2009,  I began to make sparkling wines and she (now at Rack & Riddle) was a fabulous mentor as I launched my sparkling program.

Over the years, I have had the pleasure of mentoring other women in the business and that has been something I have enjoyed and I am so proud of my dear friend Perri ,who has the Perri Jaye wine brand. She became my intern then cellar assistant in 2014 and she makes her wine now at my winery.

I love mentoring others. It’s so fun getting to see women I’ve worked with start their own brands. I also love that I’m starting to see more diversity in the industry: more people of color taking on lead winemaking and vineyard management roles and starting their own wineries. I also love meeting people from all across the country and the world at the tasting room. So many of my customers have become close friends and I love getting to share my wines with them.

What would I like to see change? I generally like to think of myself as a winemaker, not as a woman winemaker. Although I am a champion of women, it is important for me to be judged by my products, by the health of my business, and by the way I treat my team and my customers. I hope to be judged not as a woman in my field, but as a person in my field. I hope more women become lead winemakers. But something probably needs to change in the cellar work where everyone starts out. It can be a bit of a boy’s club still, even in 2024!

The 2020 vintage was marked by the Wallbridge Fire. Although we had to reject the Pratt Vine Hill and Pratt Sexton Ranch Road Pinot Noirs for smoke taint, the grapes from our OGV Estate vineyard were not affected by the smoke. That fruit was harvested on August 24th and August 31st, before the fire’s smoke settled over the county’s vineyards. Initially, it was blowing Northwest out toward the Pacific. The fruit was tested at harvest as a precaution, and when the resulting wine was also tested for smoke taint, thankfully the precursors of taint were well below any threshold that might negatively impact the wine.

It turned out to be a classic Inman Family OGV Estate Pinot. Without the vintage year on it, no one would suspect it was a year we had to reject other grapes for smoke taint.

I adore cocktails! One of my new favorites is a “Yuletide Negroni” This twist on a classic Negroni is made with DIY infused gin (so plan ahead!).

Festive Manhattan

·2 oz bourbon
·1 oz Inman Family vermouth
·2 dashes bitters

Stir over ice, strain into a chilled coupe, garnish with a dried orange slice and a cocktail cherry.

I have been drinking older wines from my cellar this past month. This week I enjoyed a 2004 Pinot Noir that I made with three other women for a charity auction. 20 years on it was FABULOUS! I also regularly enjoy Pam Starr’s wine. Crocker & Starr is the only wine club I belong to!