Perfecting Pinot Takes Work
Peter Work is, without a doubt, one of the most fascinating people we’ve met in the wine industry since we launched HinsdaleCellars.com. When you listen to the Princeton-educated native of Denmark and former corporate technology consultant talk about his vision for his Ampelos Pinot Noir you quickly sense he is not in this for kicks.
With wife Rebecca (above) and son Don, the Work family literally has learned the art of winemaking from square one in less than a decade. While living in Los Angeles where he was an executive with a sizzling hot human resources outsourcing company (Exult), they acquired 82 vineyard acres, planting at first 15 acres and later 10 more in Santa Barbara County in 1999, in an area that in 2001 became known as Santa Rita Hills. They chose well, buying their vineyard in a “neighborhood” surrounded by the likes of Fiddlestix Estate, Sea Smoke, Melville et al.
Then Sept. 11, 2001, dawned. Peter and his wife had flown on a red-eye into Newark International Airport that morning from L.A., even as terrorist hijackers were preparing to board aircraft along the East Coast that would become their apocalyptic weapons. Peter was due to take a train to the one of World Trade Center towers that morning for a meeting. But the meeting had been cancelled. He never boarded the train into Manhattan.
As soon as they could get back to southern California, following days of suspended air traffic in U.S. skies, Peter said, “we went up to the (Santa Barbara) property, spent some time in our travel trailer (no home had been built yet), and thought about life.”
Check back here for more later about their decisions, the origin of Ampelos, and the latest vintage of Pinot Noirs, but let’s just say major life changes happened.
“We sold our Mercedes and bought a John Deere tractor,” he said. “And the tractor is more fun to drive, by the way.”
– Steve Woodward
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