Martin Reyes

Master of Wine

A first-generation American, Martin is the first Master of Wine of Mexican descent. With a prolific career as a buyer, importer, educator, and more recently, winemaker, he has held influential roles in many sectors of the industry. Martin’s wine story began with an over-indulgent dinner while studying in Paris as a Stanford undergraduate and, by 2003, he was stocking shelves at K&L Wine Merchants in California. After managing St. Helena Wine Center for several years, Martin was hired as the principal buyer & importer for prominent wine club programs for partners such as The New York Times, Food & Wine Magazine, and Williams-Sonoma. In 2015, he was named one of Wine Enthusiast’s Top Forty under Forty Tastemakers. That same year, he worked the harvest at Salomon Undhof in Austria.

Today, Martin directs production for Sonoma-based Peter Paul Wines, works closely with Spottswoode Estate on climate action & sustainability initiatives, and consults across the full wine supply chain. Clients have included Vice Versa Wines, Copa Fina Wine Imports, and Vivino.com. He launched Reyes Selections in 2018, a small portfolio of his favorite producers, singled out from years spent sourcing wines globally for the US market.

An internationally recognized wine professional, Martin has judged at International Wine Challenge, Decanter World Wine Awards, USA Wine Ratings, Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, and Taittinger Sommelier d’Or Competition, Mexico; and most recently, the James Beard Foundation, and recently won Best Paper Award at the AAWE Conference, Vienna 2019 for his research in wine purchasing behavior. In his spare time, he’s an instructor for GrapeExperience.com and SFWineSchool.com. Martin is attempting to become fluent in a fifth language and raise his two children trilingualy, together with his wife in Vallejo, CA.

Ted Henry

Winemaker, Clos du Val

As only the fourth winemaker in the four-decade history of Clos Du Val, Ted Henry is playing a key role in writing the next chapter in the story of the iconic winery. A gifted winemaker, with more than 15 years of experience making estate-grown Bordeaux varietal wines, Ted is guiding a vibrant and vineyard-driven stylistic shift at Clos Du Val towards greater ripeness, more mid-palate depth and greater tannin integration. As part of this shift, Ted is also working closely with President Jon-Mark Chappellet to transition to an almost exclusive focus on estate-grown wines, with an emphasis on exceptional Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignons. This focus on the winery’s 350 acres of renowned estate vineyards, combined with Ted’s winemaking talents, is resulting in some of the finest wines in Clos Du Val’s history.

A fourth generation San Francisco Bay Area native, Ted grew up on his family’s ranch, where he was immersed in agriculture from a young age. Building on his interests in science and agriculture, Ted attended UC Davis, where he soon dedicated himself to studying enology and viticulture. While earning his degree in fermentation science, Ted worked in the lab of famed sensory chemist Dr. Ann Noble, as well as in the lab of noted plant biochemist Dr. Douglas Adams. After graduation, he joined Trinchero Family Estates as part of a team dedicated to establishing a luxury wine program, focused on Trinchero’s Napa Valley estate vineyards. Quickly distinguishing himself, Ted was rapidly promoted from enologist to assistant winemaker and ultimately to associate winemaker, before moving on to Artesa Winery and Vineyards, where he oversaw winemaking for the acclaimed Ridgeline Vineyard.

In 2008, eager to dedicate himself to exclusively making small-production, estate-grown wines, Ted joined Napa Valley’s Jarvis Estate as winemaker. There, he earned a reputation as a talented winemaker with a gifted palate, and an ability to craft beautifully balanced, vineyard-driven wines. While at Jarvis Estate, Ted also had the opportunity to learn from famed consulting winemaker Dimitri Tchelistcheff.

Marbue Marke

Director of Winegrowing, Italics

After starting a pre-med program at UC Davis, shifting directions and taking a winemaking internship, Marbue received his degrees and began his winemaking journey. Bringing with him experience from an impressive selection of Napa and Sonoma’s famed wineries - J Winery, Cosentino, Benzinger, and industry giant, EJ Gallo, Marbue was named Bonfort’s 2018 U.S. Winemaker of the Year for his modestly sized but impressive portfolio of hand-crafted boutique wines. If you ask him, the culmination of these experiences together lead him right where he was meant to be: crafting small lot, ultra-premium wine. He brings an extensive knowledge of Coombsville’ s unique terroir and a track record of producing a beautiful and a well-balanced portfolio of wines.

Cathy Corison

Owner, Winemaker and Vineyard Manager, Corison Winery

Cathy’s winemaking journey began nearly 45 years ago when she took a wine appreciation course at Pomona College on a complete whim. She fell in love with wine for all the usual reasons, but, as a Biology major, was also taken by the fact that wine is the result of a fascinating collaboration among a series of living systems. Two years later she graduated, and two days after that, arrived in the Napa Valley, bent on making wine. A master’s degree in Enology at UC Davis followed, and then a harvest internship at Freemark Abbey in 1978. Winemaking positions included Yverdon in 1979-1980 and then Chappellet Vineyard for the 1980’s. In 1987, toward the end of her tenure at Chappellet, there was a wine inside her that needed to get out and she began to buy grapes and barrels (instead of cars and houses). Using other wineries’ excess capacity while continuing to moonlight at Staglin, York Creek and Long Meadow Ranch, Corison Winery was born.

Molly Hill

Winemaker, Sequoia Grove Winery

Molly Hill is the Winemaker for Sequoia Grove Winery in Rutherford, California. Molly oversees all winemaking and production operations of the winery as well as helping with grower relations and recommendations in the vineyards. Top quality winemaking and grape growing, with passion, is her goal every step of the way.

Although Molly began at Sequoia Grove at the relatively young age of 24, she came with the experience of working at quite a few wineries, large and small. Her career in the wine world began before she was legally able to drink when she took a quarter off from her studies in Biology at UC Davis to work at Beringer Wine Estates. This experience brought about a change of major to Viticulture and Enology, which she began studying intensively on a year long study abroad trip to Lincoln University in New Zealand. In addition to Napa Valley and New Zealand, Molly has experience in the Santa Rita Hills AVA and Chile. Molly began work at Sequoia Grove in July 2003 and was promoted to Winemaker in June 2008.

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