Gail ‘Doris’ Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma County 2023

Gail’s story, a rarity in wine, is a toally blue collar one – it starts with kid, Dan O’Brian, in a small Rhode Island town, growing up in a working class Irish-Italian Catholic family. Mom worked in education, dad in trucking. The familiar story to many hard working East Coast family, but not one you would typically associate with the origins of a boutique Sonoma County winery.

Dan says his childhood spent helping the old Italians in his neighborhood shovel their driveways and rack their homemade “Chianti” gave him his first taste of hard work and wine. In high school, hoping to make some pocket money, he’d spend his days after class at the local food store, stacking cases of Carlo Rossi, and selling cheese and charcuterie (selling foods he said, “I couldn’t afford”). When the store went out of business, the owner made him a bus boy at a local restaurant he owned.

From there, Dan starting making his way up the restaurant world ladder. Shucking oysters and tending bar in Providence. A stint as a sommelier at one of Bostons best restaurants. A move to San Francisco to be closer to the wine world. Then, opening Michelin starred restaurants.

This lead to work at wineries, including Napa’s Cultivar, Estate Director for Long Meadow Ranch, and eventually to the prestigious Larkmead Winery in the Valley. Self driven, with nothing but working class grit and determination behind him – he was cracking into a world where he didn’t quite belong.

But that same grit was nagging him. He had one thing left he hadn’t done: he knew he wanted to make his own wines.

With one major caveat. Dan needed them to reflect who he was: both respected in a wine world that prides itself on class, and one that stays approachable and true to its own, working class roots.