August 1, 2001

Women of Wine

In the fourth of our series profiling the Women of Wine of the Santa Cruz Mountains, we tell the stories of two winemaking families and highlight a woman who conducts wine appreciation classes featuring wines produced in our area.

The Women of Thunder Mountain
When SUE BROADSTON met Milan Maximovich in 1990, their first date was spent visiting local wineries.

At that time Milan was a physical chemist at Lockheed, who made wine at home as a hobby. Sue was teaching physics at Cabrillo College. Little did she know that someday this hobby would become their profession.

Shortly after they were married, they started Thunder Mountain Winery. Sue watched her chemist husband transform into a winemaker, as he watched the transformation of low-yield Santa Cruz Mountains grapes into wine.

Her part was simple: Keep the day job.

That's how they stayed afloat while the business got started. For several years, Sue worked with "the finest young people in the world": her physics students and the volleyball players she coached for eight years.

Now Sue handles the printing and typography for the winery’s publicity pieces.

One aspect of the wine business Sue enjoys immensely is the social part, attending functions as "the winemaker’s wife."

KIRA MAXIMOVICH grew up with wine. Her family served wine with special meals, and she was allowed to taste it from an early age. Dad was making wine in the cellar as far back as she can remember.

A few years ago, Milan took Kira to a wine tasting featuring eight white Burgundy wines from the same producer. They were all from the same vintage, but from different vineyards.

Milan was pleased that Kira could describe the subtle differences clearly and correctly. This ability is essential to making and evaluating wine, and his daughter clearly possesses this talent.

Kira is now learning everything she can about winemaking. She visits vineyards, studies viticulture practices and tests the grapes for ripeness.

She and her dad share the tasting of every barrel of wine. Sue and Milan expect that one day Kira will take over as winemaker.

For now, she works as a delivery nurse at Stanford and El Camino hospitals and is employed part time at Mirassou Winery, where Thunder Mountain wines are produced and bottled.

Kira is fluent in French and serves as interpreter when the family visits France to learn more about winemaking techniques. Perhaps this is why Thunder Mountain wines show a French influence.

The Women of Clos LaChance Wines
Brenda Murphy and husband Bill founded Clos LaChance wines in 1992. The name is derived from the word clos, meaning "fenced-in area around a vineyard" and from Brenda’s maiden name, LaChance.

Brenda is in charge of daily operations, which includes staff management, shipping, equipment maintenance and just about anything else that needs immediate attention.

She also serves as surrogate mom to staff members, and organizes get-togethers and events. This is not a simple task since everyone is spread out, from the Saratoga office to the vineyard maintenance facility in San Martin and the wine production operations in Los Gatos.

Cheryl Murphy Durzy, the winery’s director of marketing and distribution, is the eldest daughter of Brenda and Bill. She has been involved with the company since its beginning, receiving her OIV Wine Marketing Program certificate from the UC Davis program.

Working at tastings and wine dinners throughout college allowed Cheryl to develop her palate and a love for fine wine.

Her daily activities include management of the Web site, the wine club, the worldwide distribution network, and customer service.

She also writes and distributes the quarterly newsletter, and travels around the country selling wine to restaurants and wine retailers.

"Feet on the street" sums up Cheryl’s approach to wine sales and brand development.

As director of events, the Murphy’s youngest daughter, Kristin, joined the company in June of this year after working in public relations in San Francisco.

She has already made her mark, preparing the new winery site in the San Martin foothills for events and weddings. The tasting room and hospitality center will be completed by the end of this year; bookings begin in April of 2002.

Murphy Moore, the cellar master and enologist at Clos LaChance Wines, is originally from Oregon, where she made fabulous Pinot Noirs in the southern Willamette Valley.

During the harvest of 2000, Murphy managed to conduct the most organized and efficient harvest and crush in the history of Clos LaChance Wines.

Wine Educator
The UCSC Extension wine class credits her this way: Mary C. Ericson, Ph.D., research chemist, wine educator, member of the Society of Wine Educators and professional judge in commercial wine competitions.

This may all be true, but there is so much more to the Mary Ericson I have known for 15 years. We met soon after she learned about our wines.

Her enthusiasm for wine was immediately apparent, as was her subtle humor, which is woven into everything she says; it even shows up on her voice mail greeting.

Mary teaches classes featuring the wines of the Santa Cruz Mountains for both UCSC and the Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation Department.

When a session is over, she takes them to a Santa Cruz restaurant to test their new wine expertise during a meal.

I invited myself to one of her classes to see what really goes on. At the UCSC extension classroom in Cupertino, the students brought their own glasses for tasting the wine of the evening, Zinfandel.

The class not only learned everything they would ever need to know about Zinfandel, but received gems of information on subjects such as the order in which to taste wines, what the color tells you, how to know if a wine is "corked," how to refresh your nose after tasting several wines, how to order wine in a restaurant, and why some wines are blends of more than one varietal.

We also heard about Mary's pet rats, Edna and Pat. While Edna hung out in Mary’s sleeve as she cooked, Pat helped choose wine for dinner.

How did a rat get to choose the dinner wine? It started when Mary found a pile of foil and cork near a bottle of 1989 David Bruce Estate Pinot Noir. Mary agreed that Pat had made an excellent choice, and since then has taken her advice on many occasions. Pat is also proficient in the art of cork sculpture, specializing in the hour glass shape.

"We knew we were going to learn about wine," one student said to Mary after the first session. "We just didn't know we were going to get stand-up."

You can reach June Smith at rsvwine@pacbell.net.

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