A Chat With Monterey Winemaker Ian Brand

By Randy Smith

California’s wine country doesn’t begin and end in Napa.

We hope that if you are a regular reader of this blog that you already knew that. If not, this week’s guest will help drive the point home. He and his wife are doing yeoman-like work trumpeting the wine potential of Monterey County.

Randy: How did you get started in the wine business?

Ian: My entry was different than most folks. I came to California just traveling and checking things out. I wanted to get in the water. I got to Santa Cruz and ran out of money. I had been a carpenter. Jobs banging nails weren’t open for me here. I found a job in a winery (Bonny Doon) and then got a better job at Big Basin. After five years in the wine business, I was almost thirty years old. It was time for me to decide what I was going to do with my life. I couldn’t be an assistant winemaker all my life. I needed to get serious.