Claire Mumford writes British born 04-10-1969, Dutch resident. I trained in the Visual Arts In London in the nineties, and moved to the Netherlands shortly after. Since this time I have worked independently in the arts. A few years ago I finally followed up on a long-held desire to learn more about wine. This led to a series of courses and qualifications (WSET, its Dutch equivalent, and an online winemaking qualification from UC Davis), and several harvests (South Africa, Germany, South Limburg in the Netherlands and most recently, Sussex). Suffice to say wine is no longer the hobby it started out as; it has snowballed into a deep passion - one I am beginning to explore professionally. Whatever the outcome of the competition - it has to be said I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this piece!
From the heart
Winemaker Justin Michelle Ward Trabue pays tribute to her DC origins
Waking to unfamiliar sounds and splinters of impossibly bright light, I open the blinds to the sight of a group of emerald green birds fussing around a fat, squat palm tree. Having arrived in the dark on the late flight from Amsterdam to Cape Town, this is my first glimpse of the South Africa I have waited a very long time to see.
It is mid-morning, and the house is quiet. I make my way down the hill towards the winery, where I am to spend the next eight weeks in the cellar. It involves a distinctly aromatic, zigzag route through fynbos, the Cape’s unique native brush, and although we are approaching Autumn, much is still in glorious, exotic flower.
Arriving at the cellar door at Almenkerk Wine Estate, I am greeted by the tasting room manager, who has a task convincing me that his name is actually ‘Famous’. Despite his infectious charm, he is almost immediately overshadowed by the arrival of my fellow cellar hand for this harvest. Welcoming me with an enormous, bellowing hug, she is closely followed by the winery dog (a Great Dane with a head the size of a horse, and who is more or less to remain her constant companion for the remainder of our internship.) This was my first encounter with the whirlwind that is Justin Trabue.
It is Spring of 2022, and Justin is embarking on her fourteenth harvest at the age of 27, having spent many years doing what’s commonly referred to as the ‘Hemisphere Hop’: Southern hemisphere harvest February to April, Northern hemisphere harvest September to November. Some work double harvests in each, typically starting in cooler-climate areas for early sparkling production, and subsequently moving on to warmer regions for later picking and processing of reds.
It is clear that Justin has both experience and enthusiasm; she also has plans. Whilst working in cellars around the world, she dreamt of establishing her own brand. She now appears to be well on her way to achieving this, attracting the attention of many in the Californian wine world: Justin Trabue has been hailed as a ‘rising star'.
First things first. Growing up on the East Coast of the United States in Washington DC., Justin is part of a close family of four. During a vacation on the West Coast in the early nineties, her parents visited Justin Vineyard in Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo County; “they had a little fun…and I arrived nine months later!” She credits her parents with introducing her to good food and wine, and above all the importance of tasting. On one occasion, they invited a sommelier to the house, the most significant aspect of this being that he was black. Justin describes this as a light-bulb moment; she realised that not only could wine be a vocation, it could also “be done by someone who looked like me”. Captivated by the notion of wine as a passport to the world of travel and hospitality, she promptly packed her bags and moved to California, where she studied for her Bachelor of Science in Wine and Viticulture at California Poly in San Luis Obispo County for four years.
Inspired by her experiences at home, Justin’s college specialisation initially lay in wine business, her primary focus being the hospitality industry. During her third year, however, she had the opportunity to study at the University of Australia - and it was here she saw harvest “up close and dirty” for the first time. It proved to be a major turning point, prompting a transition from wine business to production. The sights and sounds of harvest, from Barossa and MacLaren Vale to the Adelaide Hills, were to convince Justin that her future lay in winemaking.
Keen to immerse herself in production on her return to the US, Justin secured an internship with Lane Tanner, “Princess of Pinot”, at Lumen Winery in Santa Barbara County. Tanner, the first female winemaker in this county, was to become her mentor. Justin remained at Lumen for five years, working simultaneously at neighbouring winery Tantara (run by Tanner’s partner, New Zealander Riki Hill). Here she claims to have gained the majority of her wine knowledge, most significantly the low-intervention methods she describes as core to her winemaking practices today.
A formative experience for Justin at this time was a harvest placement in New Zealand, at C.J. Pask Winery in the Gimblett Gravels, Hawkes Bay. Here she worked alongside a black South African, and, realising that this was the first time she had worked with a person of colour during her six years of experience in the wine industry, Justin became determined to seek out a majority black producer for future harvest work. She chose South Africa in 2022 for this reason. C.J. Pask was her introduction not only to fuller-bodied Chardonnay production and “silky” old vine Syrah, but also to a fresh, cool-climate style of Merlot. This was to prove instrumental in her later decision to work harvest at Almenkerk, one of the few producers working with merlot in South Africa: high altitude lends wines produced in the Elgin Valley a rare freshness and vibrancy.
In 2020 Justin found herself wanting more opportunity for professional growth; she felt her winemaking lacked technical understanding. She moved to Napa Valley, where she hoped to expand her knowledge of organic chemistry and acquire the laboratory experience she needed to support her hands-on, practical knowledge. For the following two years, Justin worked at Heitz Cellars, an established, old-school Napa winery championing fresher, lower-alcohol styles of Cabernet Sauvignon - this in contrast to the oaky, concentrated examples more prevalent in the valley. These are premium “wines of waiting”, typically spending nine months in large foudres, before being transferred to smaller, new oak barrels for subsequent aging. A further year or more in bottle is not unusual, before eventual release. This is not common practice, and certainly speaks to a high-end market.
Justin has maintained her involvement in hospitality since her arrival in California, which has kept her very much in tune with her market. Experience and knowledge of sales and logistics has certainly enabled her to realise her long held ambition of starting a wine brand. With funding support from Courier Fresh Fund, Justin launched Ward Four Wines in 2022. “A big piece of my heart”, Ward Four not only references the fourth ward of DC where she grew up, but also pays homage to her mother’s maiden name, Ward. In addition, each of her wines is dedicated to a member of her close-knit family of four. “For my Mom, a sultry, smoky Mourvèdre and a pretty, floral Viognier. For Dad, a big, bold Petite Syrah, and for brother Teddy, a Barbera and a Muscat blanc, fresh and fun.” She sources her fruit from all over California, regularly racking up a fair few miles in the run up to, and during, harvest; her ferments are mainly initiated by pied-de-cuve (a method whereby grapes are harvested up to two weeks before harvest, and hand-processed, creating a small-scale fermentation; this is subsequently used as a starter for the main fermentation. The winemaker essentially ‘gets to know' the nature of the fruit involved, as well as the path the eventual fermentation is likely to take.) She insists that all her producers work organically and subscribe to fair-labour practices; all are family-owned. A circle of friends and colleagues help hand-pick (and often foot-stomp) fruit from four AVA’s: Contra Costa, Paso Robles, Dry Creek Valley and Mendocino County. Processing takes place at custom crush facilities in Sonoma. Justin enjoys working with varieties less typical of California, and hopes one day to find a grower that can supply her with her dream varietal, Malvasia Bianca.
Justin’s approach to winemaking is very much an expression of her gathered experience; terroir-driven, low-intervention, long, slow, cool fermentations resulting in gentle extraction. Her whites do not undergo malolactic conversion, retaining their intrinsic freshness and varietal character. She cites her experience in South Africa as teaching her the subtleties of lees integration and the importance of stirring for mouthfeel, which in turn inspired her current Viognier production. Asked which winemaker she would most love to work with, she answers without hesitation: Berene Sauls of Tesselaarsdal, inland of the achingly beautiful Hemel en Aarde Valley in the Southern Cape….classic, elegant Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
Harvest 2022 in South Africa was intense, fascinating, exhausting, exhilarating, insightful. The experience reaffirmed my choices and has informed them since. Harvest is an all-encompassing rabbit-hole, and the team spirit this fosters is like no other I’ve known. Harvest with Justin was full-on in many ways, and I learned a great deal from the wealth of practical experience she has acquired at such a young age; it is testament to her single-mindedness. Her ability to create and maximise opportunities is admirable. She also has enormous compassion, an unstoppable quest for fairness and a great deal of energy. We struck up a bond, travelling around the Cape together in a pick-up: an unlikely duo, united by an insatiable thirst for more-more-more knowledge and seeking to experience wine in all its glorious manifestations. The final end-of-harvest celebration weekend was spent in Cape Town; a riot of dancing, much wine and a particularly memorable dawn trip up Table Mountain.
Spring 2023. I’m preparing for my next harvest adventure in Kent in the south of England, and Justin, having just bottled her Muscat and Viognier, is about to start a new winemaking position at Scribe Winery, in Sonoma.
We keep in touch. I haven’t seen the last of Justin Michelle Ward Trabue; and neither, I suspect, have you.
The image is the author's own work.
