Winemaker Ashley Herzberg
Ashley Herzberg came to love wine early in her life. Her parents had a role in this, instilling in her the importance of cooking and eating together as a family and having wine on the table at mealtime. Despite this exposure, however, Ashley initially intended to attend medical school after earning her university degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. Four years of working in a hospital convinced her that medicine was not her calling, and modified her career goal by turning to the wine industry. Her background in science and engineering came in handy when she accepted a job as a laboratory technician at Owl Ridge Wine Services in Sebastopol.
At Owl Ridge, Ashley quickly moved up from Lab Technician to Lab Manager, benefiting from valuable mentoring by some of the top Pinot Noir vintners in California such as Merry Edwards, Greg Lafollette, Anthony Austin, and Scot Covington. Because it was a custom-crush facility with over 40 clients at the time, Owl Ridge provided her with the opportunity to gain the perspective and knowledge that would prove invaluable as she moved on in her career.
By mid-2007, Ashley found herself at Mauritson Wines as Enologist and soon was named Assistant Winemaker. She is now the Consulting Winemaker for Amista Winery, Bacigalupi Vineyards, and Saini Vineyards, all of which are in Sonoma County. Ashley is involved in crafting a number of varietals, including Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, and Cabernet Sauvignon.
She and her husband David, who is also a winemaker, enjoy camping, traveling and spending time with their two small children.
1 Comment
Patrick Dunn
September 30, 2026Hello,
Could you please pass this note along to Ashley Herzberg? Thank you.
Ashley,
I hope harvest is close to done for you.
I would like you to be part of Meet the Winemakers, a series I developed to build a record of the craft in the winemaker’s own words, kept for the people who come after. Wine has no shortage of profiles and tasting notes. What it does not have is who taught whom, what has changed in the trade since you started, or the decisions you make that you could not fully explain to somebody else. Those answers go when the person does.
The method comes from Edward “Sandy” Ives, the folklorist I studied under at the University of Maine. Ives spent forty-four years recording woodsmen and river drivers, asking them about their work and then getting out of the way. Every winemaker in the series gets the same twenty questions, asked the same way, so the answers can be read against each other as the collection grows.
I would especially like to hear who taught you in the cellar and what you have had to work out on your own.
All twenty questions are published, and I send all twenty ahead so you have time to think about them. The first interview, with Scott Harvey, is up at vianarra.com/meet-the-winemakers-scott-harvey/. The Smithsonian and UC Davis have both expressed interest in the series and its recordings as archival records.
I record video for the archive only. It is never released. The published piece is written from the transcript, and nothing runs until you have read it and told me it is right.
Sessions run an hour, at whatever time suits you: https://tidycal.com/patrickrdunn/60-minute-meeting
Patrick R. Dunn
patrick@vianarra.com