SOURCE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Online Sales and Marketing, Graphic and Web Design
In 2002, I moved from Santiago, Chile, to California finish my university studies at UCSB. I fell head over heals for Santa Barbara and ended up running into Ted. We're married now and he keeps me on my toes jumping from country to country, not only to visit but to live.
Constantino Ramos is the most interesting young wine producer in Monção e Melgaço, Portugal's most prestigious and famous subzone of the Vinho Verde. Once mentioned in conversation with other Portuguese winemakers and wine professionals, all familiar with Constantino and his wines express their belief in his talent. Fortunately for us, we nabbed him early on and what we've experienced thus far is extremely promising.
Constantino's vineyards are mostly located in Monção's Vale do Mouro and are, like the surrounding terrain, granitic bedrock and topsoil. There are three parcels where he harvests his multitude of red grapes, and a single plot for his Alvarinho. Vinha da Rocha is where the Alvarinho vineyard was planted in 2014 and has recently added a new plantation of Vinhão and Brancelho. Vinha de Aldeia, located in the hamlet, Riba de Mouro, is the first vineyard he worked with that made up the entirety of his first red wine in 2016. It's the highest altitude vineyard at nearly four hundred meters and is a high density planting on a north-face. The vines are at least seventy years old and are a mix of Brancelho, Borraçal (Caíño) and Espadeiro. His Codeçal vineyard is flat and exposed to the south and planted in a traditional way with an empty field in the center. The grapes here are Vinhão, Espadeiro, Borraçal, and Brancelho. Last is a new vineyard he started in 2020 called Vinha da Raposa-which means "vine of the fox." Not too far in a straight line from his Monção vineyards (eleven kilometers, but still thirty minutes by car), Vinha da Raposa sits at four hundred meters altitude inside Melgaço and is planted to Brancelho, Borraçal, Espadeiro, Vinhão, and Pedral.
Born and raised in a small suburb of San Francisco, I grew up working in the food industry alongside his father in the family business, Italian salame. My father Gary was a bit of a Renaissance man, with passions stretching from Impressionist Art to American History. He was also an avid "collector" of baseball cards, coins, stamps, and even had an interesting stash of wine in an insulated cellar under the stairs. It was from this cabinet that special birthyear bottles were pulled and the lore of wine started to become interesting to me and my family. In 2010, I got a golden invitation to join my father and a few of his wine colleagues on a trip to Piemonte and Burgundy (not a bad place to start). After brushing up the best I could on some basic wine info, I got on a plane for a trip that would forever alter the course of my life and career ambitions.
I returned inspired to work in the wine industry. After studying for and passing my Level II Sommelier Certification, I applied for a job at The Village Pub in Woodside, CA. With no prior restaurant experience, I pleaded with the management team to find a place for me. The restaurant's wine program was my real point of interest, and though I started as a busser, I quickly befriended the wine team. It wasn't long before I began to help with inventory and selling wine at tables as a captain in the dining room. This fantastic opportunity wasn't to last as I was offered the reins of a wine program of my own in San Francisco. I spent the next 5 years at Piccino in San Francisco crafting a short but thoughtful wine list. In 2016, I left Piccino to work with The Source. My passion, loyalty, and eagerness to improve and contribute to those around me afforded me the opportunity to manage the Northern California sales territory.
Davide Carlone is one of the most serious and important winegrowers in Piedmont. Based in Boca, a small appellation in Alto Piemonte, at the foothills of the Italian Alps, Davide's focus is on Nebbiolo and the local supporting cast, Croatina (for which he may be the strongest advocate), Vespolina, and the cantina's newest comer, Erbaluce. All the entry-level wines shine and as one goes up the ranks into the Boca appellation wine and then on to the vineyard selection Boca, Adele, the quality becomes apparent throughout the entire range. In the cellar, he works traditionally with larger old oak botti and extended aging for the top wines in the range and is well-known in the region for his extreme attention to detail in the vineyards; he stands as a model for the surrounding appellations.
Davide Carlone was born in 1968, and at that time Boca was reduced to only a couple of hectares for commercial use. As a young boy, he worked in vineyards with his grandfather, Carlo, until he was sixteen years old. By the time Carlo was almost ninety, he quit working the vines and the vineyards were soon overtaken by forest-the same story everywhere in Alto Piemonte.
In 1988, during Davide's spare time away from his family's machine and metalworks business, he started to work a small vineyard that was left behind by his late uncle. In 1990, he rented another vineyard and the spark for his passion for grape growing lit a fire. His dream for the future was rooted in his childhood, when the old ones spoke of this land that was once so beautiful, so full of gorgeous vineyards that lined the Traversagna, the ancient road that crossed through the hills of Boca. It's hard to imagine the region as covered in vines as it is now with forests, but it surely must have been breathtaking with the backdrop of the snow-capped Alps that often go rose-colored at sunset. Davide's dream is to have the region recapture this glorious past.
As Davide began to restore more and more vineyards, many old winegrowers in the region started asking him to take over their work and keep their vineyards in good health. His recovery effort was paralleled by the arrival of Swiss national, Christophe Künzli, who in 1996 adopted the Boca vineyards of Antonio Cerri, a vignaiolo who had gotten too old to keep working his vines and making wine. Christophe's global view as a former wine merchant in Switzerland impacted Carlone, giving him the push he needed to begin bottling his own wines. Today Künzli is perhaps the most famous producer in the appellation, and he continues to buy fruit from Carlone just as he has done since the beginning of his project. Together, the two became the unified voice of this historic but almost completely forgotten region.
Davide has continued his quiet rise and in the process developed a small cult-like following for those more familiar with Alto Piemonte. Slowly, he recovered more and more former vineyard land overgrown with forest throughout the appellation and has now amassed over eleven hectares planted (2021) with numerous biotypes for each of the varieties he grows.
Growing up on a small farm in the rural countryside outside of Portland, Oregon, unexpectedly began to shape my professional path back to the farm and garden. Those days planted a proverbial seed that would later be watered by my thirst for understanding the world of wine.
Over the past 22 years, wine has taken me on a voyage of intrigue, relevance, passion and insight. What was only a beverage turned into a history lesson, a treasure hunt, curriculum and, finally, an integral part of my life.
After a longstanding high-end restaurant career, I shaped a preference to wines that draw emotional reactions and deeper connection to the place from which they originate.
While attending Tufts University outside of Boston, I found a job as the Lead Host at Harvest, a small, farm-to-table restaurant in Cambridge. Little did I know it would mark the start of my 15+ year career in the hospitality industry while also becoming a formative experience for my appreciation of food and wine. I returned to Utah after college to my hometown, Park City, where I helped open a Jean-Georges concept at the St. Regis Hotel as the Lead Server. The wine list was great (at least by Utah standards) and I was able to get involved in the wine program. San Francisco was my next stop, where in 2013 I began what ended up being a decade-long tenure with Bacchus Management Group. I started as a Sommelier at their famous Michelin-starred Woodside location, The Village Pub, and we finally achieved our long-awaited Grand Award from Wine Spectator. In 2017, I opened The Village Bakery & Café in Woodside as the General Manager and Wine Director. There we earned the Wine Spectator "Award of Excellence" for our tiny, but mighty, wine list. In 2019, I landed at one of San Francisco's top spots and one of the flagships of the Bacchus Management Group, Spruce, where I served as the General Manager. While running restaurants was a passion, it was also a grind. I knew I wanted to return to a career more focused on wine, and after many years of building wine lists (which included a lot of my absolute favorite wines from The Source), I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool to work with those wines full-time?" I joined The Source in the fall of 2021 and now represent our company and its collection of boutique wine producers in San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma and Napa Counties.
I first became serious about wine through cooking in restaurants in my hometown of Chicago. While working at Schwa restaurant, I began to create wine pairings for the food I was cooking and serving each night. This sparked an obsession with wine that grew and eventually took over my life, inspiring me to move to southern California in 2011 where I worked for Whole Foods selecting wines and distributors to be sold region wide. I then went on to work with Lou Amdur at Lou Wine Shop & Tastings in Los Feliz, where I opened the store in 2014 and helped manage and buy wines for the shop in its first three years before joining The Source in 2017.
German riesling was my first love in the wine world, and continues to be the thing I reach for the most. When it's not riesling, the wines of Piedmont, Burgundy, Jerez, Galicia and the Loire Valley are most commonly found in my cellar and on my dinner table. I had a career in music before food / wine, and when I'm not cooking or traveling to wine regions I am usually playing music or enjoying nature.
My post at the legendary (for the area and the time) Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium in the early 2000s proved to be very influential. We not only operated as a tasting room for boutique local wineries but I had the pleasure of getting to know many prominent winemakers in Santa Barbara County. I quickly realized wine industry people were my kind of people. During that time, I also moved around 3 other local wineries while taking classes through Allan Hancock College's Viticulture and Enology program. I eventually became a sales rep for a local distributor for nearly 6 years, including a stint working with a premiere Austrian importer that blew my palate open. After that, a break from life as I knew it led me down several different paths, but I knew deep down I'd prefer to return to wine. Sure enough, it was the opportunity to work for The Source that brought me back, knowing the wine growers' farming philosophies and respect for the earth were akin to mine.
It certainly wasn't one wine that got me hooked. Sure, I liked wine in my early 20s but would be embarrassed to admit what I drank back then. Through industry events, generous wine collectors sharing and numerous memorable dinners at Full of Life Flatbread in Los Alamos I tasted a wide range of older imports of which, Burgundy and Rhône were standouts. As most palates change, I now generally gravitate towards crisp, high acid, non-fruit driven whites of the Loire, Chablis, Austria, Spain and Portugal, but I'm always open to tasting what's out there. The fact that we never stop learning in this industry has me hooked.
Monção e Melgaço was historically red wine country, and the arrival of phylloxera to Europe became a temporary boon for the red grape export market, especially the black, rustic and structured Vinhão grapes, which were sold to Bordeaux during the crisis. The same was the case with so many other sturdy red wines of Europe, perhaps most famously those of France's Northern Rhône Valley Syrah-to blend with other grapes as an enhancer of structure and color. Once phylloxera (the famous root louse that eats the roots of vitis vinifera species of grapes-those that make the best wine) became manageable with the discovery that sturdier American rootstocks could be used in place of those from vitis vinifera, which resulted in things normalizing. Vinhão remained favorable to Portuguese winegrowers because it was so strong by nature; they could add water and still have what seemed like a good wine. Eventually commercial interest in Vinhão waned due to the ascendant value of Alvarinho grapes, and its rustic, hardcore red wines were not for everyone. It's now a pretty obscure grape known to be mostly made by the locals for home consumption, a sad fate for a grape variety that exhibits true potential but is simply in need of courageous wine professionals to tame it and expose the quality of its underbelly. I believe in this grape because I've had many versions of it that were so impressive despite the rustic, intense character. It's like Syrah on steroids, but with a massive dose of acidity.
There are other red grapes that have hung on for dear life in Monção e Melgaço, but are usually tucked up into the hills and mostly grown by home winemakers. These obscure grapes are the focus of Constantino's red wines. (He laughs at me when I speak of my belief in and love for Vinhão!)
Brancelho (also known in Portugal as Alveralhão, and Spain as Brancellao, or Albarello) is a rarity with only about ten hectares of vines in Monção e Melgaço, most of which are owned by older people. It also grows in a few spots in Portugal's Dão and Douro wine regions and is one of the most interesting prospects in northwestern Iberia. On its own (which is more common in Galicia), it can produce light-colored wine with intricate aromas, good freshness, and a light to somewhat medium body.
The other red grapes of focus for Constantino are Cainho Longo (or Caíño Longo, in Spain), a fabulous grape variety known for its broad range of red and dark fruit, big acidity and medium tannins-the latter of which is completely dependent upon the season and whether it can properly ripen. As I've written in the past, it's another extremely promising grape variety in northwest Iberia. Borraçal, also known as Cainho Tinto, is similar to all in the Cainho family: high tones, high acidity, good structure. However, this Cainho has a tight cluster making it more difficult with high mildew pressure-a good enough reason for it to lose favor from a commercial perspective, but not a qualitative one.
Padeiro de Basto, which is related to Espadeiro, has the advantage of early ripening with good potential alcohol volume. It's often used for rosé wines. Pedral has a very short cluster and contributes higher alcohol potential but less acidity, which is helpful for balancing many of the high acid, low alcohol grapes of northwest Iberia. Loureiro Tinto, a grape not too dissimilar to Vinhão in its inky black color and big personality, although perhaps slightly less rustic? Lastly, Rabo de Anho, a light colored, very acidic red with big tannin and big acid. There are indeed more hidden treasures in the Vinho Verde, but this is a good start.
Sonya Behar-Castel and Pierre Castel
La Fabrique, the home of Pierre (middle) and Sonya (right), has become the staging ground for every trip that we have made in Europe. With each visit all are welcomed with excessive amounts of outrageously delicious food, second-hand smoke, forbidden spirits and our own beautiful Provençal room on their 16 hectare farm, in Graveson. They ask nothing of us except, "don't wait too long to come back."
In 1995, at age 19, my obsession with wine went from zero to warp speed. Ever since then, I have lived, drank, breathed, obsessed and spent nearly every dollar I've made on it. Wine's infinite layers of depth keep me constantly engaged, from mankind's philosophy to the very nature of the earth, the universe and everything in-between. In wine I have found my academia, philosophy and calling. It's what I do. My current role for The Source is as its acting president, designated traveller, curator, writer and photographer.
Today, I reside somewhere in Iberia with life partner, Andrea Arredondo (whose profile you will also find on this page). We made the move to Europe in 2018, starting with Italy for a year and then made the permanent move to Iberia.
Yes, we are also a family business. I grew up in Montana with my older brother, Ted. Always the closest between our other siblings, I had no idea I would spend my life working with my brother.
Ted says, "Victoria is the superstar behind the scenes of everything we do. Everyone in The Source leans on her every day and would agree that we would be half the company we are without her.
I hail from the green and rugged southwest coast of Victoria, Australia. Having cut my hospitality teeth on restaurant floors in both Melbourne and London, I was suckered down the rabbit hole of wine, pushed deeper and deeper by transcendent experiences in my early wine life with old bottles of Clare Valley Riesling, electric Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley, and cool-climate, Victorian Pinot Noir.
Though, it was love, not wine, that drew me to California a little over a decade ago and throughout the past 10 years I have moved through both restaurant and retail-focused wine worlds in San Diego, Santa Barbara and San Francisco, fine-tuning my knowledge and crystalizing my passions in wine. Most recently, my tenure as managing partner of iconic, Italo-centric retail store, Biondivino, located in San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood allowed me to fire my flame for all things Italian wine even more. I have now returned to my ‘Californian roots' here in Southern California as The Source's link to San Diego and Orange County.
Job Titles:
- Wholesale General Manager
Yes, we are also a family business. I grew up in Montana with my older brother, Ted. Always the closest between our other siblings, I had no idea I would spend my life working with my brother.
Ted says, "Victoria is the superstar behind the scenes of everything we do. Everyone in The Source leans on her every day and would agree that we would be half the company we are without her.