Natural Talent: Kristie Tacey of Tessier 

June 22, 2023 – “When I hit my 30s, I found myself unhappy and knew I needed to do something else,” confesses winemaker Kristie Tacey, a Michigan native who now lives in the Berkeley hills. 

With a degree in microbiology from the University of Michigan, she had a good career in biotech going for 10 years in the Bay Area, but it wasn’t filling her tank. 

“Science was cool, but it was not my tribe,” she says. “I loved music and the arts and my friends were always writers and artists. One day, I went wine tasting in Sonoma, and I was like, WOW!” 

Being interested in botany and biology, she was attracted to the idea of hanging out and living the good life of wine. 

In 2009, she began to delve into winemaking in earnest, with some really good and not so good experiences. One of the best was working for Lost Canyon, where one of the principals was from Michigan, and offered her the opportunity to train as operations manager. 

“All the small winery guys had told me, ‘Don’t quit your day job!’, but I decided to do that anyway. I loved the nurturing that these guys did for me: they were an encouraging lot, and completely unlike my job in science. It was rewarding and fun,” she says. It flipped a switch. 

One of the highlights of working at Lost Canyon was getting to work with the late Saralee Kunde, who owned the famous Saralee’s Vineyard in Sonoma before selling it to Jackson Family wines in 2012. (Saralee passed away two years later.) 

“She was so encouraging to women!” says Tacey. “She let me take 2 tons of her fruit, which was a very positive thing. She treated me with respect. She would invite all the winemakers who purchased her fruit to her place to talk about the wine they made from her vineyard. It was such a fun open and helpful discussion! I met a lot of fun people that way: it helped me out of shyness.”

In 2011, she started making Grenache from El Dorado, a region she discovered through the many tasting groups she belonged to, which helped develop her wine vocabulary and taste memory. 

Although everyone says Pinot Noir is challenging to work with, she finds Grenache no less so. Slowly but surely, she began to expand her horizons, make wine from a smattering of interesting vineyards, including many on the Central Coast. She sources Riesling from Zabala in Arroyo Seco (since 2017), Pinot Noir from Saveria, Mourtaou from Siletto in San Benito, and skin contact Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir from Filigreen Farm in Anderson Valley. Beginning in 2021, she began sourcing Merlot from Zayante. 

“There’s so much bad Pinot Noir out there, why not make Merlot?” she asks. It’s a subtle form of revenge for the damage inflicted by the film “Sideways” on Merlot, and consequently on Pinot Noir. 

She had not intended to expand her portfolio quite that robustly, but it’s just what happens when you succumb to that siren song of beautiful old vineyards and the thrill of showcasing their precious fruit. “All of a sudden, I had 7, 8, 9 varieties! And, I suddenly had 1600 cases!! In 2019, I started experimenting with blends. Prior to that, I was a purist. But blends are fun and easy to drink, and they remind me of music.” 

She has a series of blends that blend her love of music with wine. “Soul Love,” a chillable blend of reds and whites, is dedicated to David Bowie, while “Femmes Fatales” is dedicated to the Velvet Underground. Her tribute to Jimmy Hendrix is called “Electric Ladyland,” a combo of Albarino, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Riesling, Grenache and Pinot Noir. 

Tacey puts herself in the natural winemaking camp, although the word “natural” is loaded with ambiguity. “Natural is a huge umbrella,” she says. “I define it as minimal intervention, including native ferments and not innoclating for ML. It all happens naturally. I do less SO2 overall, and I wait longer and add SO2 only at bottling. The raw definition is under 75ppm SO2. I also do not advocate filtering and fining, which I stopped in 2015.” She admits she once did egg white fining on a Cab Franc, but the next year, did a pumpover instead of punchdowns to better control the tannins.

Picking is critical to making low intervention wines, she says. “If a wine has more acid, it will be more protective of microbiology. I now get to use science in a fun way! Since higher alcohol levels kill native yeast, I find you get a wider range of flavors when you pick earlier.” 

In essence, she likes to think of herself as a maker of “transparent wine:” her definition is Wines that express purity and a sense of place. 


Shall we taste?

2021 Skin Contact Chardonnay, Zabala Vineyards, Arroyo Seco  – This is the first wine of hers that I tried, and I immediately loved everything about it, from the ripe apple nose to the slight bit of honey and the engaging texture in the mouth. For an orange wine, this is stellar.  

2020 Direct Press Riesling, Zabala Vineyards, Arroyo Seco – This opens up with a bit of petrol, and then it develops secondary characters of musk melon, cantaloupe, and honey, exhibiting a nutty barrel influence. Not at all sweet, and very dry.

2021 Mourtaou Siletto Vineyards, San Benito – The color tells you everything you need to know. It tastes like its translucent self portends: light and bright, with snappy red apple and sassy cranberry. It’s tart and crisp and something you want to chill and have with spicy, even fiery, food. Perfect for summer: it will come. 

2022 Femme Fatale Rosé, Central Coast 65% Grenache (Arroyo Seco) and 35% Pinot Noir (Christie Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains) –Tacey’s tribute to the legendary women of rock, this wine is a surprise from cover to cover. It presents wonderful jasmine and cotton candy aromas, with pink lemonade, watermelon and strawberry rhubarb pie flavors. The wine is enlivened by a slight spritz that greatly magnifies the enjoyment level of the wine.  

2021 Pinot Noir Saveria Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains – Even though this was picked earlier than most Saveria Pinot Noirs I’ve had in the past, the telltale red raspberry vibrancy comes through like the voice of your favorite friend from long ago and far away on the other end of the phone. It cheers and uplifts you with a familiarity that speaks so brilliantly of site. 

Speaking of speaking, Tacey said something that resonated deeply when sharing her life story. “Wine elevates the conversation: I just love how things evolve when there’s wine involved. You just wait for people to loosen up.” 

And then the conversation takes off. You never know where it will go. Like a musical jam session with or without the music, it takes its own shape, fills its own void, and connects people in ways they never would have otherwise. 

Find her wines at many places in San Francisco, including Bi-Rite, K&L, San Francisco Wine Trading Company, A Grape in The Fog, at Enoteca La Storia in Los Gatos and at tessierwinery.com. You can arrange private tastings at her place in Berkeley. She’s looking to expand her presence in the Santa Cruz and Monterey area.