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WINE COUNTRY NEWS | WINE COUNTRY THIS WEEK28CHATEAU ST. JEANopen daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.8555 Sonoma highwa,y Kenwood, cA 95452(707) 833-4134 | www.chateaustjean.comWINEMAKER PROFILE: CHATEAU ST. JEANMARGO VAN STAAVERENBY MiKe hYlAnDMargo Van Staaveren doesn’t have a very long resume. In fact, I would be surprised if sheever had one. Margo has been spent her entire wine industry career, 32 years – including thelast ten as winemaker, with Chateau St. Jean. The Marin County native led a somewhatnormal life growing up in Terra Linda, graduating high school and then enrolling at U. C.Davis, “not for the winemaking courses, but I eventually fell into it,” says Margo VanStaaveren, and quickly adds, “the degree that was being offered back then wasn’t inwinemaking but in Fermentation Science. Now it’s called Enology.”What really got her hooked was working a harvest that her dad had signed her up for atBeringer Vineyards. In addition to picking the grapes, Margo would check the brix and tendto everything else that was related to the harvest. And shortly after receiving her Davis degree,she joined Chateau St. Jean as a lab technician and never looked back.Her first day on the job she met her future husband as they were both clocking in to beginwork in the vineyard’s lab. Sometime later, they started dating and then they married, bothremaining in the lab at the winery. They both worked their way up the wine ladder to theposition of assistant winemakers, and had time to raise a family as well.Husband, Don Van Staaveren, was named winemaker and eventually created the 1996Cinq Cepages, a unique blend that totally blew away the wine industry when it was releasedin 1999. Wine Spectator named the 1996 Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cepages the Wine of theYear, the very first Sonoma County wine ever to receive the distinction. As assistantwinemaker, Margo, too, was part of the team that brought home the glory to Chateau St. Jean!Soon after creating the wine, Don Van Staaveren left to work as winemaker at ArtesaWinery. Presently, he creates wines for Three Sticks Wines in Sonoma. In August of 2003, itwas Margo’s turn to become winemaker. “They offered and I took it,” says Margo. “The kidswere older and it made a lot of sense for me.”As winemaker, Margo makes the final decisions involving the blend and the style tocontinue to produce consistently high quality wines. “I believe that great wines are grown,”she says, “and we are very proud of our vineyard designated wines, utilizing the best fruitwith exceptional varietal character.”With the myriad of decisions that need to be made as winemaker such as when to pick thegrapes, what to blend, how long to barrel, when to bottle, how long to keep it in the bottle;and when you are making some 40 different wines for a company the size of Chateau St. Jean,there are a lot of decisions to be made.Some of the newer vintages that will be released before too long include a Malbec Reserve,a Cold Creek Chardonnay and a Russian River Pinot Noir, which, Margo says, “is a multivineyardwine that we are trying for the first time.”At present, Margo and her staff are working on several wines that will be released nextsummer such as the 2011 Fume Blanc. “We’re also blending some reds – a Sonoma Cabernetand a Sonoma Merlot,” says Margo. “Blending goes on around here all year long. We’re alsotasting though the last vintage wines and assessing how to put them (blend) together. There isan amazing amount of diversity to what we do here.”One of her favorite aspects of her job is being able to create a wine and in a year or two, oreven longer, be able to drink the fruits (no pun intended) of her labors, reliving all that wentinto the making of the wine.“I love all the challenges of the wine business,” Margo says, “but it is important to realizethat first and foremost, this is an agricultural business, which makes it both exciting andhumbling, especially when Mother Nature is involved.”So let’s not worry about that resume that she probably doesn’t have. I don’t think MargoVan Staaveren is going anywhere anytime soon.Follow us on Twitter @WineCountryTW