Daydreamer Among the Barrels
DAYDREAMER AMONG THE BARRELS
At her new Tessier Winery, Kristie Tacey is living the life of her dreams
By Mary Orlin | Photos by Clara Rice
Kristie Tacey is a self-described daydreamer.
Throughout the long, solitary hours spent inside various East Bay labs during her science career, she often found herself daydreaming about the previous weekend’s vineyard visit or times spent listening to music and sipping wine with friends. Those daydreams became even more vivid when a newfound obsession for pinot noir took hold and prompted calls to winemaker acquaintances, whom she hoped would encourage her to follow the wine. Most said not to quit her day job. But a daydreamer is not one to heed contrary advice.
Fast forward to April 2024—15 vintages into her winemaking dream—and Kristie Tacey has opened her own winery and tasting room at 1335 Fourth Street, former site of Vinca Minor, in Berkeley. The Instagram-worthy space features a large mural of Jane Fonda as Barbarella drinking wine. An easy-drinking red blend named Day Dreaming in a nod to Aretha Franklin is a popular pour.
“I’m always listening to music, and I want to capture the vibe in the wine for people so that they have something more to experience,” says Tacey, who makes musical tributes of all her Tessier blends. An orange blend named Electric Ladyland honors Jimi Hendrix with a snippet of his “Electric Ladyland” lyrics on the back label. Colorful, abstract label art (with hidden female forms) by Dublin graphic artist Tara Lynch is also inspired by the music. Tacey’s Spotify playlist—the Tessier Collection—can sometimes be heard at the tasting room, and out in the community she does a Sunday DJ gig on KXSF radio (102.5 FM) for two hours each month plus guest host spots on the station’s Supper Sessions. “We focus on wine and community and food,” she says.
Tacey’s family has roots in the Loire Valley of France where the family name was Tessier-Lavigne, which means “of the vine.” The family immigrated to Canada in the 1600s and later to Michigan, where they adopted a phonetic spelling of their name to come up with Tacey. The original name hung around in Kristie’s imagination.
Tacey has lived in Berkeley throughout her years in winemaking, but the work has taken her from place to place. Her first wine job (in 2006) was at Oakland’s former Lost Canyon Winery, where she served as assistant winemaker and winery operations manager. She also set up and ran their lab.
“I was super freaked out about switching careers,” the Michigan native says. “You don’t do that. You go to school, you get one job, and you stay in that.”
Lost Canyon’s owners also ran a special needs school where they practiced positive reinforcement, an approach that spilled into the winery and helped Tacey gain the confidence she needed to imagine life beyond the lab. “Everything that I did, they complimented me, which never happened in science,” she says. “It felt really good. And it changed me.”
When Lost Canyon was sold in 2009, Tacey was reluctant to go back to science. Instead, she started her own label and began a nomadic winemaker’s journey. Her first crush—200 cases of pinot noir—was at Oakland’s Urban Legend, and then she made wine at Oakland’s Stage Left Cellars. A wine consulting gig took her across the bay to San Carlos, and as she began to source more fruit from Sonoma County, she moved her winemaking up to the Healdsburg area.
An impactful trip to France changed the trajectory of her winemaking. She became smitten with grenache and with minimal-intervention practices like sourcing sustainably farmed grapes, using native yeasts, not filtering or fining, going low on sulfites, and aiming for lower alcohol wines. She sought out lesser-known varieties like albariño, gamay, grenache blanc, négrette, and mourtaou, and developed relationships with growers in El Dorado County, the Santa Cruz Mountains, Mendocino, and Lodi.
“All these growers are extensions of my family,” she says, adding that many of them related to her science background. “Usually, people are really excited that we can talk about nerdy things.”
To satisfy her fellow nerds, Tacey includes a data set on her back labels with pick date, brix (sugar level) at harvest, ingredients, and number of barrels made. She continues using art from an early vintage as her Tessier icon: It features a sage leaf under a scanning electron microscope with the tagline “Science is Art.”
In 2023, Tacey was offered winemaking space at Donkey & Goat Winery, which shares a compound in West Berkeley’s Gilman District with Broc Cellars and Hammerling Wines. “It’s great to be part of a collective,” she says. “I’ve always been very into community, and community makes it easier making wine.” Her new tasting room at 1335 Fourth Street in West Berkeley is in the same compound. “Guests can come to try all the wines by the glass,” she says. “Once harvest happens, you can watch us work on the wines, too.”
Tacey notes that science can provide structure that is very good for winemaking. “I love that tool, but not the rigidity,” she adds. Now that she’s truly owning her creative side, daydreams continue to guide her. ♦
Kristie Tacey has a talent for coaxing out each grape’s personality and sense of place. She also has a knack for matchmaking when it comes to blends that are unexpected and fun. Here are six Tessier bottles to try.
Tessier 2020 Zabala Arroyo Seco Riesling ($28) features grapes from the Zabala Vineyards in the Arroyo Seco AVA (American Viticultural Area) of Monterey County. Pulsing with vibrancy and a whiff of petrol, rose, and lychee, this wine has verve and rocks with minerality.
Tessier 2023 Electric Ladyland ($30). Like its namesake song by Jimi Hendrix, this mellow, easy-drinking wine has lots of funk and soul. It’s an orange wine, which means the white grapes (albariño, grenache blanc, riesling, pinot gris, and chardonnay) have spent time fermenting in contact with the grape skins, which confer a glowing orange hue. A little grenache gives the wine body. It whisks you away with white flowers, tropical fruit, and melon notes.
Tessier 2022 Day Dreaming ($35). This tribute to Aretha Franklin’s “Day Dreaming” lifts your spirits but keeps you grounded. The blend of négrette, mourtaou, and riesling is reminiscent of crushed red berries and hibiscus tea. Hint: Serve slightly chilled.
Tessier 2023 El Dorado Gamay Noir ($35). A pure expression of gamay, this single-vineyard wine made from Fenaughty Vineyard gamay uses the same grape as Beaujolais nouveau but gives nothing of nouveau’s bubble gum, soda pop sensation. A translucent purple color highlights this fruit-forward, herbal, lip-smacking soft and savory wine.
Tessier 2021 Santa Cruz Mountains Merlot ($45) uses fruit from the Zayante Vineyard, where vines are managed by rock star viticulturist Prudy Foxx. With a purity of red fruit, violets, and spice, it really sings, and each aromatic sip is alive with acid and plush tannins.
Tessier 2019 Goldbud El Dorado Mourvedre ($32). Grapes from Goldbud Farms in the El Dorado AVA of the Sierra Foothills result in a lush and intense wine. There’s lots of red fruit flavor—cranberry, rhubarb, plum, and strawberry—with a savory, minty finish.
Mary Orlin is a James Beard Award– and Emmy Award–winning writer and TV producer and a WSET Advanced certified sommelier. For many years she was the Mercury News wine writer and was executive producer of NBC’s national wine show, In Wine Country. She now co-hosts a tasty podcast called Sip Sip Hooray, exploring winemakers, wine, and other spirited libations.
Clara Rice began photographing as a teen and has been shooting ever since. “I’m most motivated by creating beautiful imagery in collaboration with individuals and exciting local businesses,” she says. clararice.com
