Cru Podcast | Stories From The People Behind Wine

Francoise Peschon is the head winemaker for Cornell Vineyards. She has always had an affinity for estate properties – for those places that are “about the land and the wines, not necessarily the winemaker.” In her thirty-year career, she’s worked at some of the best—including Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Araujo Estate Wines, Viader Vineyards and Vine Hill Ranch—quietly crafting some of Napa Valley’s most acclaimed Cabernet Sauvignons of the last three decades. She is quick to credit her mentors, wine industry luminaries like Michel Roland, Warren Winiarski and Tony Soter, whose sensitivity, intellect and sense of aesthetics have clearly inspired her. Early in her winemaking career, Francoise spent a year in Bordeaux working at Chateau Haut Brion. The first job always makes the greatest impression, and It was there that she knew she wanted to work with Bordeaux varieties at an estate property. Two concepts that have resonated with Francoise for more than 30 years. She holds a degree in Enology from the University