Wonder Women: 10 female California winemakers to watch
14th March, 2016
by
Lucy Shaw
Cathy Corison
A voice of restraint in a land of ‘look at me’ wines, Cathy Corison has been single-handedly championing elegant, fresh, lower alcohol California Cabernet at her eponymous winery since she launched her own label in 1987.
Born in Riverside, Corison studied biology at Pomona College in Claremont, where she was forced to join the men’s diving team, as a women’s team didn’t exist. Studying oenology at UC Davis in the mid-70s at the same time as Rhône Ranger Randall Grahm, Corison was told by her professor that she’d struggle getting a winemaker job in Napa because she was a woman. Undeterred, she joined Freemark Abbey as an intern and worked her way up to the role of winemaker, then moved to Chappellet as chief winemaker, where she stayed for a decade.
Having also chalked up stints at Staglin Family Vineyard, York Creek Vineyards and Long Meadow Ranch, today Corison makes two Cabernets – a blend from sites near Rutherford, and a single-vineyard Cab from the organically farmed Kronos vineyard next to her winery, which boasts deep, stony alluvial soil.
Uncompromising and exacting in her ‘hands-off’ approach, Corison’s aim is to make terroir-driven “complex wines that walk the fine line between power and elegance” and have “a long and interesting life” ahead of them. So far, she is most proud of the 2001 vintage from her Kronos vineyard. “The fruit flavours are bright, natural acidity snappy and the tannins feel like velvet. This was the first vintage that made me realise what my vineyard could do,” she says.
