Women in Wine: Kat Doescher Blends Tradition with Innovation

There's a new generation of women winemakers transforming California's burgeoning industry. This spring, Kat Doescher took over winemaking for Madrone Estate Winery, Valley of the Moon and Lake Sonoma. By working directly with trusted vineyards, Doescher ensures that each bottle fully expresses the characteristics of terroir, climate, and style of their provenance.

But it wasn't her degree in chemistry and microbiology from Humboldt State University that led her into winemaking. It was having family in Sonoma, and being introduced to it while living in wine country.

"This was an opportunity to come back and be part of the romantic thing we do here," she said. "I make wines that I would love to drink, and I hope other people like them as well."

After learning the fundamentals as an analyst in Gallo's busy Sonoma lab, Doescher became an oenologist at Lake Sonoma and Valley of the Moon wineries, learning the finer points from former Head Winemaker Greg Winter.

When she eventually took over operations, Doescher paid a lot of attention to retaining varietal fruit components, both by selecting the exact yeasts that enhance the delicate flavor notes emerging during fermentation, and by keeping initial fermentations cool. As fermentation progresses, warmer temperatures give red wine their structure and mouth feel. For Doescher, this attention to detail early on results in dynamic, well-balanced wines that consumers enjoy.

What's Trending Now

"Wine industry techniques ebb and flow as people chase big, bold, structured wines, and then move back. The trend in red wine right now is particular tannin extractions," she said. "They extract them during the hot part of fermentation, but the heat loses some fruit and flavor. By doing cool fermentation first, and not letting the wine get away from you, you can keep the fruit forward and keep the flavor better longer."

As an example, Doescher notes her signature Valley of the Moon Barbera, a fruit-forward wine that is very drinkable, even after five years in the bottle. But the wine's structure now comes later in the fermentation process. Instead of draining the tank when the sugars are gone, they heat the juice and pump it over the skins a little longer, letting the wine extract what it needs.

This isn't to say that Doescher approaches all wines in the same way. She ferments all vineyards separately, and samples each daily. Now approaching her 11th harvest, she's become an old hand: she tastes local grapes, understands what they'll produce, and adjusts the fermentation accordingly.

Each day, Doescher does lab analysis for her wines, keeps the wines stable until they are bottled, compares varietals, blends wines, thinks about the final result, and then "knocks them out, slowly but surely."

Most of the blends are single varietals, but some -- like Cabernets -- benefit from the addition of other varietals to round out the palate. "I'll taste them together, and if there needs to be a little more fruit in the beginning of the taste, I'll look for another Cabernet or Malbec and see if that helps," said Doescher. "The goal for all wines is to have a specific varietal fruit from beginning to end, an appropriate oak, spiciness, and structure."

Grower and Maker

Another key way Doescher gets the most out of her wines is by focusing on the relationship between the grower and winemaker. Most of the current Sonoma winemakers remember her from when she first started in the business, and trust her knowledge of their vineyards to get the best out of the grapes.

"Because I have a good relationship with the growers, if I feel like their grapes need to sit and ripen a little longer, I'm not as pressured to pull them," she said. "I understand that harvest is the one time of the year the grower makes money, and that they want to bring in the grapes ASAP and be done. But getting them to invest in the wines we're making is great, because they know I can take my time, and get consistency out of different vintages."

The number of women winemakers is slowly growing, and Doescher said she hasn't felt any unique challenges being a woman at the head of the winemaking industry; in fact, she feels that it can sometimes work in her favor, as she appears less intimidating.

"I tend to have a motherly approach to people liking my wine -- like a mom that makes dinner for her family and just hopes everyone will love it," said Doescher. "But my focus is a little different, because I want you to enjoy the wine as part of a favorite dinner. That way when you buy it again, you remember the good times, and it's like coming home."