Valley View winemaker Mike Brunson sanitizes the corker on their bottling line, getting this machine prepped for their next batch of bottling.

When it comes to winemaking, Mike says he’s had the chance to do it all, from the work in the vines… to getting the wine in the bottle.

“I started in ‘89 at a place called Sky Vineyards, which is on the Napa-Sonoma county line, and it was all volunteer. Three meals a day, case of wine at the end of it and a little cash. Found myself doing it quite often, when you’re 19 and you have a case of wine, that’s like cash,” Brunson says.



He says being in this world of wine just fit, “I was blessed and cursed with a good sniffer and worked with some folks who were pretty encouraging about it and gave me opportunities to taste wine at a young age.”

It took a few years, but Mike says when he started to sample and share some of the wine he made, the lightbulb really clicked.

He worked in Santa Cruz, California for a bit, then back to Sonoma for several years before taking the winemaking job at Valley View 2 years ago.

“Part of the draw of this industry is that it’s agriculture and people tend to forget there’s a lot of farming that goes into this. And the beauty in that, for me, is that every year is different. Even if I’m in the same place for 10, 12, 13 years, each year is different and each year, there’s a challenge that pops up,” Brunson says.