I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and met my husband Joe, a native Californian, on a job site in the Oakland Hills after finishing design school. In 1996 we moved to St. Helena, California for a construction project and for the next 10 years we worked on various projects for ourselves as well as clients in the Napa Valley, settled in Calistoga and planted our roots.

You can’t help learning a little about wine and get drawn into the romance of it when you live in wine country. Joe in particular became interested in the farming and production and I became spoiled, no longer able to drink the jug wine I thought was “fine”. It’s a long story, will tell you more later if you want to hear it, but for now will just say we mortgaged our house as much as we could, borrowed money from family and friends and ended up in the wine business. In 2008 we opened Lava Vine in Calistoga - With the help of some amazing vintner friends, fabulous employees and a lot of support from family, Lava Vine became known for good wine, its small, funky, not always appropriate atmosphere and for its spontaneous live music. The wine business for the most part, is a rich mans game - most wineries start with a lot of capital behind them, that wasn’t us. Somehow we made it work, growing each year, keeping our guys employed and paying the bills but definitely a stressful ride at times. In 2015 we were approached by another winery to purchase our label and property, an offer that was hard to refuse, but not an easy decision, our crew had become a part of our family. We did decide to sell, a game changer for sure.

I still had my design business, was busy being a mom and managing our menagerie of farm animals, more about them later, and Joe for the first time in his life had the freedom and time to mountain bike, fish, spend more time with our kids (and me)… We have spent the last 5 years thinking about the next step - a new business venture (that’s where Fish and Farm comes in), maybe in wine/farming and possibly a move. In 2017 the Tubbs fire happened, clinching our decision to really start looking for property in the Pacific North West. It’s hard to believe we could experience another fire like 2017 but in September of 2020 the Glass fire burned almost to our property and drastically changed the landscape of the Napa Valley. Sadly, that was it - we sold our house, bought property on the Sound and rented a house in town in Calistoga to finish out our daughters senior year of high school. And this is where our Next Adventure begins …