Jennifer Gray Wine

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Los Olivos, CA
Jennifer Gray Wine

Wine Education and Consulting

12/12/2025

Mid-December and we’ve been allll about tasting through the wines, taking samples of the ‘25s to check in on malic levels, and adding some protective sulfur where needed. My secret to a full morning of Syrah tasting? Saltine crackers to give your mouth a break. Go team!!! We are almost ready for a little winter break. Just have to top everything up and prep for some time away from the winery to celebrate the holidays with loved ones. I’m excited! 🎄 I hope your days have been marked with at least a smattering of hope and good cheer! 🥂

11/10/2025

LAST BIN for the 2025 harvest happened last week!!!! 👏 We did it, guys!!!

We also….
celebrated birthday

Had fun fluffy Grenache fermentation

And we are hanging in there with the last of the ferments. 11 bins left of Syrah and Grenache, some of which will get pressed off early this week! 🎉 🙌

Harvest is the bestest, hardest time of year. I love it but I love it even more when it’s over 😅 and we can all look back at the fruits of our labor and be happy that everything is put to bed and headed towards the next stage. It’s pretty cool. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling ready to give thanks for a great harvest and get some extra sleep along with my turkey and pumpkin pie. 😉

11/09/2025

Checking in on rosé and Grenache Blanc 🫶

Feeling so happy about where these wines are right now….get excited!!

11/03/2025

Last week we could really feel the shift. A couple of days we were done by mid afternoon. Less ferments. More empty tanks and bins. More full barrels.
Fall hangs in the air—it’s still been pretty warm in the Santa Ynez Valley, but we can feel the coolness in the early morning hours, at night.
Courtney has been working on our end of harvest checklist. I’ve had time to try and get all our inventory caught back up (it’s been busy!!).
Can’t believe that at some point we have to phase out our wonderful interns 😭. We have been lucky to have these two — they are strong and full of good vibes, good questions, and remarkably good attitudes even when faced with endless cap management or cleaning the equipment over and over and over again 😆.
So close, just one pick left! 😮
Until then, we keep on keeping on—but the end is definitely in sight! Happy/sad

10/25/2025

This week:
Sooo much racking (moving liquid—juice or wine—from container to container).

Grenache Blanc completed primary fermentation!

is alllllmost done getting all our fruit in! 4 more tons left. This week we processed some Syrah and some Grenache (gorgeous gorgeous fruit from both!).

We pressed some Pinot Noir for and some carbonic Cab Franc for —all of it smells and tastes amazing.

It’s fun to get to this point in harvest—I’m finally able to poke my head above the proverbial water 😅 , get off work early enough to watch the World Series, and feel the chill of the weather as it starts to turn (foggy mornings in Buellton). Slowly but surely slowing down and getting ready to put these barrels to bed for a bit.

10/18/2025

This week at the winery:
Took in some Grenache, Chardonnay, and the last of the Pinot Noir.
Had a few days with no fruit in, which allowed us some time to consolidate finished barrels, clean, barrel down some tank ferments, and move stuff around to reorganize. And Grenache Blanc is fermenting away—down to 3 Brix yesterday! 🧡 A great week! 👍 Can’t believe we are halfway through October already!

10/12/2025

Big week for ✨
One ton of beautiful Grenache Blanc that I pressed to tank, settled, racked and put to tank to cold ferment for some beautiful, fresh GB—coming your way in the next few months!💛
Absolutely thrilled with this juice and can’t wait to see (and share) the end results. 🥂 😀
Anyone else love Grenache Blanc? 🙋‍♀️

🐝

10/05/2025

Front of the week was all about pressing off some reds and more intake of red fruit. The end of the week was catch up and clean up days while we waited for the pet Nat to be ready to bottle (which it was, finally, late Friday afternoon). 😅 I think we have taken in about 80% of the fruit we will get for harvest 2025, which is astounding. I always feel like this at this point in harvest, like I haven’t even been able to catch my breath but then, all of a sudden, we are way more than halfway done. And it’s exhilarating! I love finding the joy in things like the smell of freshly pressed Pinot noir, organizing barrels around the winery, tasting fermenting juice and getting excited about the wines to come. And even though we were bottling into the darkness of Friday evening, we had fun listening to music, toasting each other with 2024 Pet Nat, and seeing the fruits of our labor stack up onto pallets. ✨

09/27/2025

Not gonna lie, I’m exhausted.
It’s been a busy week.
Biggest event—my two year old Blundstone boots 🥾 finally bit the dust (no worries, new pair is on the way!).
The Pinots are pouring in and our interns and have been getting their workouts in with punch downs. 😅
We’ve had so many ferments going that it’s taken hours to do Brix/temps checks every day.
Every day is different, every day is a new day to learn, taste, experience.
May your weekend be filled with time to sink into the good stuff of life! 💗 I’m going to enjoy my family, watch some Dodgers baseball and 14u girls softball, call my college girls and get some time with my husband. 💕

09/21/2025

A blur of a harvest week:
Sampling, processing fruit, pressing off the first of the reds, and—as always—cleaning cleaning cleaning!

The first of the Jennifer Gray Wine (rosé) has completed primary fermentation and is consolidated into two barrels (with some left over for topping). ✨It is a gorgeous *pink* and currently tastes of guava and strawberries (so pretty)!

09/13/2025

This week was huge for me.
(Spoiler, or tl;dr: I am making wine!!! My own wine!!!)

When I first had the internal stirrings to work in the wine industry, I thought it would be as a wine educator. And I did do that, as Jennifer Gray Wine.

I thought I would work one harvest so that I could speak with more authority about the actual act of winemaking.
That harvest led into another, and then into full years of employment making wine for other people. Which I love! But….
This fall, I begin the process of turning Jennifer Gray Wine into a wine label. A place for me to put my own hopes and dreams into play. What will this be??? I don’t know. But it is some kind of beginning.
My life philosophy, as I near a half century of life (!!!)—as a cancer survivor, as a mother—is “if not now, when?”
So here I am, sharing with you all, with excitement (and a little dose of trepidation), my process of doing these things for myself.
I am still a (happy) team member of the Story of Soil crew, but this is my side hustle—making wine where I call the shots, rather than carrying out work orders for others.
I worked 16 hours on Thursday (8 for Story of Soil, 8 for myself) for the very beginning of this project, a rosé of Pinot Noir.
I humbly thank the community of winemakers around me, several of whom I have been reaching out to for guidance as I set out.
But, let me tell you, it was the most empowering and amazing moment when I alone made the call to stop the press cycle.
It’s never too late and also IF NOT NOW, WHEN????
For the love of the grape,
Jen
Owner and Winemaker,
Jennifer Gray Wine

P.S. Special thanks to

Jessica for her mentorship and encouragement

Adrea for capturing scenes from the first pick (and bringing me dinner, and staying up way too late with me!)

My love Adam for encouraging me to go big or go home and for holding down the fort at our home and always cooking me dinner because he is better at it and I would personally rather not cook

Courtney for being my supportive work bestie who always has an encouraging word

And to all of you following along on this journey: thank you ☺️ 💕

09/06/2025

Lots and lots and lots of grapes this week—sampling, pressing, destemming, pumping over, etc etc etc! Really getting into it this week. Gorgeous fruit coming in for 2025 harvest!! 🍇

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Los Olivos, CA

Website

http://www.jennifergraywine.com/

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