A Global Makeup Artist Returns To Help Build Family Winery In Sonoma County

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — In 2021, Freddy Lopez drove across the country, returned to Sonoma County, and began looking differently at the vines where he had spent Saturdays working as a child.

That return ultimately helped turn grapes his father, Ramiro Lopez, had grown and sold for decades into wines bearing the Lopez Family Vineyards name.

The family’s push to build its own wine label comes as many Wine Country growers are pulling out vines or selling vineyards amid a difficult grape market.

Ramiro Lopez and his father began working vineyards around Alexander Valley in the early 1970s, including for Robert Young and Pedroncelli, before saving enough money to buy the family’s property.

The family planted Chardonnay, and Ramiro acquired the vineyard outright in 1978 and has largely farmed it himself ever since.

Freddy Lopez grew up on the property until the family moved to Santa Rosa. He was about eight years old but he and his siblings still returned on Saturdays to work in the vines.

However, the younger Lopez pursued a different path, spending nearly a decade as a MAC Cosmetics makeup artist before becoming Tarte Cosmetics’ global ambassador, moving to New York, and traveling worldwide.

Then COVID-19 hit. Lopez packed up, drove home in early 2021 with his two cats, reconnected with his father, and began helping in the vineyard.

He also enrolled in viticulture classes at Santa Rosa Junior College, studying pest management, pruning, canopy management, and other aspects of vineyard farming. He began suggesting changes to his father, who surprised him by embracing the ideas.

That experience also showed Lopez how much work his father had put into the vineyard — and how little growers could sometimes receive for grapes after tending them for an entire year.

Lopez urged him to try something different. "You have the all-American story," Lopez recalled telling his father. "You are an immigrant from Mexico," who had worked for years without setting out to make wine.

"Let's give it a shot," Ramiro Lopez told him.

"Let's tell your story and start making wine and see how it goes," his son said.

And if people did not like the wine? "We'll just drink it ourselves," Freddy Ramiro told his father.

Freddy Lopez racks wine from grapes
grown at the family’s Geyserville vineyard.

Building A Winery

For years, the family had sold its grapes to local wineries, including Chardonnay to Clos du Bois.

In the lean years, Ramiro Lopez would go winery to winery selling grapes that had not be bought. The quality won over buyers like Thumbprint Cellars, played a significant role in both the vineyard’s transition and Freddy's development as a winemaker.

Building the winery required another bit of improvisation.

Rather than take money away from the vineyard, Freddy Lopez developed a candle collection under the Lopez Family Vineyards name to sell at the Makers Market at The Barlow in Sebastopol.

Sales from the candles helped pay for licensing, labels, and bottles for the family's first vintage.

Freddy Lopez, left, and his father, Ramiro Lopez, toast with wine made from grapes grown at their family’s Geyserville vineyard.

New View, Next Steps

The family has also avoided the expense of operating a traditional tasting room, allowing it to increase bottling as its wine club grows.

The shift back to vineyard life also changed how Lopez viewed the place where he grew up.

After a career that made airplanes, fancy hotels, models, hairstylists, and backstage work part of the work day, Lopez discovered that he enjoyed being outdoors. He also realized how difficult it would be to replace the land if his family sold it.

"If we don't do this, then, you know, it's just gonna be sold," he said, sitting in a space carved out for events in the vineyard.

The vineyard itself continues to change. Lopez said the family diversified partly to match demand and partly to grow varieties suited to a warming climate. But farming has also taught him how little control growers ultimately have.

Lopez Family Vineyards' first wine was a 2022 rosé of Cabernet Franc. People signed up for its wine club even when the family had only that one wine.

The winery subsequently added Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Chenin Blanc, with Petit Verdot and a blend planned for release this fall. The goal is to make wines from grapes grown on the family's own property.

This year, he expected the vineyard's Malbec crop to fall by about 50 percent after an early warm spring brought growth and bloom before a heavy rain caused shatter — when flowers fail to become berries, reducing the crop.

After erratic spring and summer weather, Freddy Lopez checks for signs of shatter — flowers failing to develop into berries, leaving clusters with fewer, widely spaced berries and reducing the crop.

Heat, rain, and other conditions can undo months of work. The lesson, Lopez said, is that growers can do everything they can, but "it's ultimately Mother Nature's decision" what they get at the end of a season.

The family is also beginning to bring more people directly onto the vineyard. Lopez said it plans to continue holding vineyard events when weather permits and hopes to offer pop-up tastings during seasons when outdoor events are impractical.

One of those gatherings is on Sunday. The event, Sauced In The Vineyard, is an outdoor harvest celebration at the vineyard near downtown Geyserville, featuring tastings of López Family Vineyards wines, passed bites, wood-fired pizzas from Pizza Santo, and hospitality from Vino Vendetta.

The event grew out of a partnership with friends Lopez met through the Cloverdale Wine Walk. He described the idea simply: "Let's make something fun."

For Lopez, the aim is to offer a different kind of Wine Country experience. "My goal is to just create experiences that are more approachable," he said.