“Lead with Heart”

I own and operate Et Fille Wines in the Willamette Valley. My path into wine was entirely out of family loyalty. I had grown up helping my dad with his winemaking hobby, which entailed helping him pick and crush grapes from our back yard vineyard and bottle in our garage. I never thought of wine as romantic because it was mostly about sanitizing. As I got old enough to drink wine, I understood the point of all that cleaning!

We spent my 21st birthday in Burgundy and it transformed my interest in wine. However, that was on the sidelines as I was focused on science for my career. After college, I was a management consultant for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device clients. My job was to analyze scientific need and business opportunities for new drugs or technology. I went on to get my MBA and then worked for a biotechnology company launching drugs. It was my dream job and I had no intention of doing anything other than continuing to work my way up in biotechnology management.

One day, my dad called me and said he was thinking of taking his winemaking hobby professional and starting a winery. I didn’t think he would do it unless I pushed him, so we co-founded Et Fille in 2003. Since my background was in science and business, I knew nothing about winemaking so everything I learned was by doing it side by side with my dad, which we did until his death in 2017. Now I’m the sole owner and winemaker making wines inspired by my dad’s legacy and daughter’s future.

In biotechnology, I worked with a team to bring drugs for cancer and autoimmune disease to market. Career switching from biotechnology to winemaking was rough. What made it the hardest was letting go of my ego. Winemaking is basically done in a manufacturing environment. I had never been around that setting so didn’t know, for example, that you get a heavy tank from point A to point B by using a pallet jack or forklift, never mind how to operate one. Nothing I had known or achieved in biotechnology was relevant to just do the basics. What made adapting to running a wine business, rather than a biotechnology business, challenging was that wine is a cash flow business. I am spending money now on the 2022 vintage, which I will not realize revenue from until 2024-5, so you have to manage differently.

All that said, there were skills that translated. First, know your purpose. In drug development, it was a relentless focus on the unmet needs that patients have. In wine, for me, it is about enhancing our guests’ connection to family. Second, I had to learn how to make complex decisions with a lot of data in biotechnology in order to hone my intuition and experience so I can make wine in a small business with much less data. Third, lead with heart. In biotechnology, I led a team with about 350 field based reps. In order to lead, I had to prove that I cared about whole person the team members brought to the job, not just what they did in their job. That’s also true in wine.

The toughest challenge I have experienced was when my dad died unexpectedly and tragically. I was grieving the loss of my dad, best friend, and business partner. There was an initial moment when I wondered if I could continue making wine without him, but then I realized the only thing harder would be NOT to continue building the business we started together.

As hard as that first year was, there were a few lessons that made me stronger. One was that I had always tried to keep my work and personal life separate, but then I was experiencing a very public grief. Everyone knew the winery was named Et Fille because of my dad and me and I couldn’t just hide my grief away. It was uncomfortable, but I show up from a more authentic and vulnerable place now. Another was to trust and have faith. Since winemaking is all about decision making, and all of a sudden I was making decisions alone and not with my partner, I had to learn to trust myself. It took years for me to really get this- maybe until we had released those first few wines I made alone- and it’s still challenging.

I have grown from working in a business that follows the rhythms of nature. We go inward in the winter so we can replenish. We shed what no longer serves us and then we start anew. We blossom and develop and then we frantically produce during harvest.

I feel lucky to work in the Willamette Valley wine industry, which is collaborative. I have been on the receiving end of extraordinary generosity and our culture is one of helping.

I love running a business that can operate within the ethos I believe in. We’re committed to Sustainable Winemaking, Community, and Diversity & Equity, and I can make decisions that align to those values. We do projects that launch wines that raise awareness and funds for STEM education for girls and prenatal care and prematurity research, for example, because we are committed to organizations that make our community better for all of our daughters.

When we started Et Fille Wines, I kept my biotechnology job for a few years and then still consulted in biotechnology after that. I think that held me back from fully committing to the winery because my bills were being paid elsewhere. It’s what worked for me at the time, but my advice to someone wanting to start a winery is to jump in and rip off your security blanket. I have also learned to celebrate our own successes, which was tough because in corporate life people do it for you. There are times that I bring out a nice bottle of champagne for dinner because I signed a new distributor on or secured a new vineyard. No one stops to celebrate these accomplishments, so you may as well do it yourself.

There are three pieces of advice that former bosses and mentors have given me along the way that I will always remember:

1. “Be true, be true, be true. In work and in life, have the courage to say the truth.”
2. “On my drive into work every day, I try to think of one person whose day I could make a little better.”
3. “Keep pounding the table while patting them on the back.”

I’m bringing the champagne! Of course, I’m bringing Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and rosé (assuming it’s hot on the island), but I hope I’ve brought some Gigondas and Barbaresco for the chilly island nights.