Playground Cellars

If you cannot make it to our Playground then we will bring it to yours!

Welcome To Playground Cellars

Moving to the San Francisco Bay area in 2000 opened our eyes and palates to what wine is all about. In the first year living in California I was able to take a three month sabbatical and worked crush in Sonoma, CA. Long days of physical work were the norm for those three months, commuting around 2 hours one way. But those three months educated me in the process of wine making, what it took to produce wine, and it solidified a dream… to eventually produce our own wine.

The next year I did the same, although not a full time, I did work the 2001 crush on the weekends. It was during this crush I realized the difference between the process of wine making and the art.  In 2015 I was able to work crush again but this time in Napa Valley and experience a very different side of wine making.

Over the years of studying and working crush I’ve realized there are several routes someone can take to get to their destination, much like there are difference actions a wine maker can take during the wine making process. The question would be what the end goal is, what are you trying to achieve with your wine? This of course is dependent on Mother Nature, how and where your fruit was raised. But mostly it is dependent on how adventurous you are.

As Suzanne mentioned it took us awhile but the stars aligned and we were able to move to St. Helena in the middle of wine country.

We almost immediately started to produce our own wine for personal consumption and experimentation. A true Garagiste if you will. At the same time we started finding hidden gems of some remarkable low production wine. This is what helped start Playground Cellars. Our idea is to share these discoveries with you, to experiment and introduce the new, revisit the traditional, but in the end to play with your palate.  ~ Proprietor & Winemaker Joe White