Lindsey Rich
USA
Lindsey's Wines
- USA
- 1 wine
- 1 style
She's made wine for Naked's best, now she's shouting her wines from the mountaintop
Lindsey’s ready to make her name in the El Dorado AVA of the Sierra Foothills. What’s so special up here? At elevations of 1,200-3,500 feet, the region's vineyards on steep hillsides enjoy warm days and cool nights, producing vibrant and fruit-forward wines that promise pure fun.
With a deep respect for the mountains she grew up hiking, Lindsey is on a mission to use her decade of winemaking experience alongside Naked's best winemakers to put her name on her favorite wines— and support the place she loves.
- Lindsey is now forging her own path — but she knows the best wines to share with you along the way. Teaser: the highest quality wines up here are red Rhône varietals and Lindsey is sure to show you her hometown’s best!
Lindsey Rich's Story
My introduction to the wine industry was in 2013 when I transferred into the Viticulture & Enology program at UC Davis. At the time I knew very little about wine, but had an interest in the product as it had always been on the family table to compliment a meal, even for simple weeknight dinners. Upon graduating from Davis in 2015 with a B.S. in Viticulture & Enology, my goal was to find a winemaking job in the Sierra Foothills where I grew up and wanted to start my adult life, but jobs in that region are few and far between, so I took on a harvest internship at Bogle Vineyards in Clarksburg to figure out my next move.
While at Bogle, I experienced the chaos and rush of harvest for the first time, and had a crash course in working in a high volume production winery lab. This experience was key to landing my first full time job in January 2016 after the internship ended. This job was QC Bottling Technician for LangeTwins Family Winery & Vineyards in Lodi for their new, state of the art bottling line. In this role I worked under David Akiyoshi and Karen Birmingham and my focus was to make sure that every wine was ready for bottling and to resolve any quality issues that arose during bottling.
LangeTwins was and still is a provider of custom winemaking and bottling services, and during this time they started bottling for a new client, NakedWines.com. As this relationship developed, I became the primary point person at LangeTwins for Naked Wines bottling projects, and worked closely with Franc Dusak to make sure that all wines for Naked were in tip top shape. Eventually, I came to run the Bottling QC Lab, managing two techs that made sure the wines were ready on time for bottling and that the bottling line ran smoothly while I began to take on more winemaking responsibility and supported David and Karen through harvest each year and assisted with making the blends for the large number of programs that LangeTwins produced, both for their internal brands and several well known custom crush clients.
During my time at LangeTwins, I never stopped learning. Eager to know more about the wines of the world which I thought would make me a more well-rounded winemaker, I put myself through the WSET program starting in 2017, and graduated Level 4 with a Diploma in Wines in early 2020.
By 2019 I was Assistant Winemaker at LangeTwins, and a new winemaker, Alex Farber, had joined the team at LangeTwins. Alex became a good friend and mentor to me, and encouraged me to apply to Naked Wines at the end of 2020 when I was looking for a new challenge. After five years of working for LangeTwins, where I had learned the ins and outs of bottling and all the nuances that go into high volume winery production, I started working for Naked Wines in January of 2021 where I took on the role of Winemaker and focused on liaising with our bottling partners and off-site bulk wine storage facilities.
I love my job at Naked Wines, but after years of making wines for clients and looking after wines made by others before they bottle, I still longed to make a wine of my own from the Sierra Foothills. Thanks to Naked Wines, I now have that opportunity and it really is a dream come true, even though that sounds hyperbolic to say. It seems fitting that my first vintage was 2023, exactly 10 years after embarking on my winemaking journey.
