Vero focuses on small wine and olive oil producers, of which most of them are family run. So, it’s not a big surprise that we have some mother-daughter teams which are part of the Vero producer community. In this article we are highlighting two of them, which lie on different sides of the world:

• Ojai Pacific View Vineyard and Winery in Southern California and

• Vigna Petrussa estate winery in Fruili, northeastern Italy.

Let’s hear their stories!

In our first team, Patti (mother) and Jacqueline (daughter) own Ojai Pacific View, a vineyard and winery that grows Dolcetto grapes. Their California wine Dolcetto has won multiple awards across vintages, including Best in Class and a Double Gold Medal for their 2020 vintage. Patti lives in Southern California, and her daughter Jacqueline has lived in Piedmont in Northern Italy, a mecca for wine lovers, for over 10 years. When Jacqueline is not helping her mother with tasting wine, she first worked for over 10 years as a chef in a local Piedmontese restaurant, and now is a certified sommelier and a Vero Collaborator. Jacqueline and Patti have worked with Vero before in many VeroTalks, such as THIS one where Patti was live from her winery and Jacqueline live in Piedmont, Italy cooking up some of her favorite recipes from the restaurant.

Our second mother-daughter duo crafting Italian wine, are Hilde Petrussa and her daughter Francesca of Vigna Petrussa estate winery in Friuli, Italy. When Hilde retired at 50 from teaching she took over the vineyards and Italian winery from her own mom. Francesca represents the third generation of women to look over this estate. In the US for less than only a few years, first imported by Vero, they have been lauded with great reviews and all wines getting 90+ point scores, such as when Italian wine critic Ian D’Agata citing Vigna Petrussa as ‘one of Italy’s best and most under the radar estates’. These mulitple awards and recognitions are a testament to their hard work in the vineyards and handcrafting their wines with passion, creativity and lots of motherly care. One can truly say with Vigna Petrussa that wine is in the blood of the Petrussa women.

The inside scoop of working with mom and daughter

We talked with both mother-daughter teams about what is it really like to work together. We wanted to know the ups and downs, and the joys that can come with sharing not only personal relationships, but also business interests between mothers and daughters.

Pour yourself a glass of Pacific View Dolcetto or Vigna Petrussa Refosco and read on to see what Patti, Jacqueline, Hilde, and Francesca have to say.

How did you wind up working together? When did you start?

Patti: I wanted to plant vineyard on our ranch in 2011. At the time, Jacqueline was attending a local university in California and still a large part of daily life on the ranch, so she was naturally a part of the decision making in the initial founding of Ojai Pacific View.

Jacqui: Yes, while in school I was working with my father building the irrigation and rainwater systems. Also having an interest in wine, I enjoyed helping Mom consider varieties that we could grow. During all this work and school, I had started cooking and baking as a stress relief. One evening I found a bottle of what we called ‘test wine’ that had been opened, and decided to use it to experiment a little in the kitchen; thus, was born the ‘wine candy’ part of my mom and I’s business relationship. Mom really liked what came out of that evening experiment and decided to create what was The Wine Candy Company.

Francesca: My mother and I started to work together a few years ago. Initially, I started to help out and just lend a hand to my mother during conferences and wine events, especially the international ones. Little by little, I started to help with all aspects of the business.

How do you both divide responsibilities? 

Patti: Who does what is a question that depends on who is where! With Jacqueline living and working in Italy, we have had to build a unique rhythm that ebbs and flows depending on who is in what country. This was even further upended last year; since Covid started, Jacqueline hasn’t been able to travel home at all.

Jacqueline: I used to be the ‘bureaucracy’ person, but now Mom looks after a lot more of that with my just playing a ‘moral support’ type role. In the past, when I would pick the days I would be home in California, we would set up a lot of appointments for whatever needed to be done at the time. More recently, since Covid, there have been lots of Zoom meetings. I also call Mom daily too just to talk.

Hilde: I watch over and manage the wine production, both in the vineyards and cellar, while my daughter works mainly in the business side of things.

Francesca: Yes, I mainly do the business activities such as participating in online events (tastings, conferences, B2B). I also do the marketing for everything.

What’s it like to work with your mother/daughter? What’s the best part? What can be difficult about it?

Patti: The best part is how Jacqueline and I balance each other well, plus, it’s nice to know you can always trust your business partner. A difficult part is that being separated across continents has been doubly difficult: I haven’t been able to see my business partner, and more painfully my daughter. It’s a double emotional whammy.

Jacqueline: For me, I consider all the time we get to spend together a huge blessing of our businesses; it allows me to spend a lot of extra time with my mom when I otherwise might not be able to. A difficult part for me is when disagreements arise; sometimes as a daughter, it can be difficult to drive my point home and still feel I am maintaining parental respect.

Hilde: Our favorite aspect of working together is that we both have two different point of views. We both have different visions coming from our different ages and experiences and that puts a different light on our business.

Francesca: Negative aspects? I don’t think there are any. Maybe sometimes is can be tricky to blend new ideas with old traditions, but I feel very lucky that my mother is always open to hear new ideas.

How do you differentiate your ‘free time’ and ‘business time’ in your relationship?  Does ‘business’ ever spill over into mother-daughter time? How do you manage that?

Patti and Jacqueline: It’s nice to be able to spend business time doing ‘fun’ things, like wine tasting or cooking, but everything tends to bleed together, and eventually even our daily calls end up dealing with business too.

Hilde: Our conversations, even those personal ones, always end up about business. There really isn’t a hard line between work and family.

Francesca: In this moment there are a lot of changes in not only the wine market but also in the business, there is always something to discuss and talk about. This can make it harder to draw the line.

What’s your favorite memory or story of working together?

Jacqueline: I really treasure the memories of Mom and I tasting our way around Northern Italy in those early years when we were picking out the grape to plant. We went to so many different wineries and restaurants and really had so much fun… but really just the fact that we have an ‘excuse’ to travel together is pretty great.

Patti: My favorite memory comes actually from one of our businesses, The Wine Candy Company’s, early stages. Jacqueline and I did a ‘candy tasting’ to try out several of Jacqueline’s candy recipes and trials to figure out which we liked best. The only problem was, Jacqueline had not yet figured out how to cook all the alcohol out of the candies! After a few hours of tasting and tasting, we starting laughing and came to the realization that we were actually drunk! After that, Jacqueline tweaked her cooking times and temperatures to make sure she cooked out all the alcohol.

Francesca: I think that my best memories are created when we get to travel together. When we get to go to events and conferences we take an opportunity to cut out a few moments to relax and explore new cities and restaurants.

Hilde: I agree completely, our best memories working together is when we travel, but, most importantly, the joy we share from having a common vision and then making that dream happen!

Taste the Wines of Ojai Pacific View and Vigna Petrussa, and other Women Owned Wineries

For those of you that know our curation style, you know that we love to support small producers, like these two women owned wineries, and bring you unique fun wines. Whatever it may be, we just love to search them out. And you can enjoy these curations by trying a selection of different wines and different winegrowers from our portfolio. We sell to both businesses and consumers across the US:

• We are enlarging our network of distributors around the country. Reach out to us if you are interested in distributing our wines.

• We sell to wine stores and restaurants in certain states - contact us if you would like more info.

• We do corporate gifts and sommelier guided wine tastings. Email us and we’ll tailor unique and sustainable corporate gift ideas.

• If our farm crafted wines and olive oils are not in your local shop or restaurant, you can buy wine online here in our VeroShop, and we’ll ship it to you, including wine gifts, and we ship to most states. Want some sort of mother daughter holiday ideas for gifts? Then try some wines from these mother-daughter teams, Ojai Pacific View and Vigna Petrussa, or even other Women Owned Wineries, with our Women Winemakers Red Wine Collection. Buy this set today that has shipping included and free shipping for any wine or olive oil added on to the order.

• We also have an award winning wine club for true wine explorers that are seeking to continually discover unique, sustainable and authentic small production wines they never had. These are wines selected by our sommeliers and curated for each box.