Greg La Follette

Greg La Follette was born in Europe, growing up with an old-world view that wine is raised rather than "made”. After studying ancient Burgundian techniques at UC Davis, he continued on-the-job studies at Beaulieu Vineyard as research viticulturist/enologist with wine master, André Tchelistcheff.

From BV, Greg went to work at Kendall-Jackson where he was responsible for gathering and disseminating the best and latest thoughts on vine/wine quality as in-house troubleshooter/consultant.

La Follette then turned his talents to Flowers Vineyard & Winery where he was the winemaker and general manager, launching one of the most successful small Pinot labels to date. The winery he built at Flowers is still considered one of the very best gravity-flow, gas-assist green wineries in the world.

Greg's accolades include:

"Artisan/Winery of the Year" by Wine & Spirits in 1995 at Hartford Court and again twice (unprecedented) in 1999 and 2000 at Flowers Vineyard & Winery

Top-rated Chardonnay in the World 3 times by Wine & Spirits for his ’97 & ‘98 Porter-Bass Chardonnay and ’98 CMR Chardonnay

"The Best of the Best" for both Chardonnay and Pinot noir by The Wine Spectator for Flowers and #1 and 2 scores of the year for 1998-99 Pinot releases by the Wine Spectator for the 1996 Flowers

Under Greg’s leadership, Flowers was called one of the 5 finest producers of Pinot noir by Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

#1-rated Pinot noir (Tandem) in the world in the 2004 Pinot noir Shootout and Summit, an independently-judged Pinot competition involving hundreds of Pinots world-wide.

La Follette's wines have been served at the White House at several state events, including to 44 heads-of-state at the NATO 50th Anniversary and he has been asked by the State Dept. to represent the US in goodwill efforts abroad to improve winemaking practices in other countries.

Greg has turned his attentions to vineyard & winery consulting internationally. He has designed/redesigned 14 wineries worldwide (emphasis: “green” design), was consulting designing winemaker for the new UC Davis teaching winery and is involved in projects on 5 continents. These efforts have resulted in the #1 white wine of the year in Chile and two years in a row the #1 Pinot noir in South Africa, as voted by each of those countries’ own vintners associations.

With all of this under his belt, La Follette has combined talents with Linda Villagomez and Rick Davis to ply their trade of crafting wines from the Sonoma Coast, cited by the Wine Spectator as a region producing some of the finest Pinot noir grapes in the world.