JASMINE HIRSCH

Winemaker and General Manager at Hirsch Vineyards

THE DUSTY, GRASSY smell of summer on the Sonoma Coast is one of Jasmine Hirsch’s strongest childhood memories. It was here, in 1980, that Hirsch’s father, David, founded his now-biodynamic vineyards in the remote community of Cazadero—on fertile land that centuries earlier had been covered in temperate redwood rain forest. The place is deeply embedded in her soul. Which is why it’s so curious that she left. It took Hirsch a decade to return to the winery; in between, she majored in Japanese studies at the University of Pennsylvania and worked for a Czech entrepreneur in Amsterdam and Prague. It wasn’t until she accepted (and, almost immediately, hated) an NYC finance job that a helpful friend nudged her back. “None of the kids ever wanted to work for our dad,” Hirsch admits. “But my friend, who’s a Master Somm, said, ‘He’s doing something important. You should go help.’ ” So Hirsch accepted a job as the winery’s director of sales and marketing. Then, in 2015, she took over as general manager after her father was paralysed in an accident. When the head winemaker left, Hirsch stepped into that role, too. “I worked really hard to change the culture, which still had this slight toxic masculinity on the winery side,” she says. Hirsch has set a positive tone while maintaining her father’s legacy. Her first vintage of the flagship San Andreas Fault Estate Pinot Noir, in 2019, was a hit: red-fruit-forward, soft yet energetic. “My ambition,” she says, “is to make good wines that are a continuation of what we made before.”

Jasmine Hirsch on the grounds of her family’s Sonoma Coast estate.