About

Winemaking and Viticultural Philosophies

My approach to viticulture and winemaking is rooted in the same guiding principle: respect for nature.
I believe the highest honor I can give the grape is to let it speak for itself; to express its place, its season, and its relationship to its caretakers with as little interference as possible. I try to be present, observant, and responsive to ensure the health of both vineyard and wine, while allowing the story of the terroir to come through clearly.

Of course, nature isn’t typically gentle. In both the vineyard and the cellar, there are competing forces such as pests, disease, climatic conditions, and microbial threats that can derail a vintage. My role is to protect the wine and the vines as thoughtfully and gently as I can. In the vineyard, that means using ecologically sensitive practices, including organic, biodynamic, and regenerative methods. In the cellar, I lean toward a “minimal intervention” approach: native yeast fermentations, no or low sulfites, no fining or filtration, and an attentiveness to ripeness that respects terroir.

That said, I’m not dogmatic. If a wine needs help to survive I will do what’s necessary, with care and transparency. Any significant intervention, such as sulfite additions or fining, would be made with full respect for the wine’s integrity—and I believe the consumer deserves to know about it.

This is a passion project, but it’s also a business that I have to protect. That being said, my hope is to sustain it for as long as I can, with respect for the land, the wine, and the people who drink it.

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How Did We Get Here?

I started From Brent with the belief that every bottle of wine can tell a story; about a place, a vintage, and the people behind it.....​

My professional wine story began in the winter of 2013. I began attending a course at Southern Illinois University Carbondale called From Vine to Its Wine. It was meant to be a fun way to fulfill my elective requirements for graduation. The course covered basic viticulture, enology, the history and culture of wine, and included a weekly tasting lab. What I thought would be a light elective turned out to be quite involved. It was fun, complex, and surprisingly challenging.

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As a class, we took a field trip to several Missouri wineries and vineyards. On the bus ride, I randomly sat next to one of Southern Illinois’s best winegrowers, Kaleb Willson. I picked his brain during the trip, and a few weeks later, he offered me a job taking care of an 8-acre vineyard of Chambourcin. He taught me how to prune the vines and how to manage the vine canopy. That job sparked a deep passion for viticulture and also supported me financially until I moved to San Jose, California, to pursue an M.A. in Holistic Counseling Psychology.

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While in graduate school, I worked for three years in both the tasting room and vineyard at Cooper-Garrod Vineyards in Saratoga, CA. After that, I spent two years helping manage the vineyards at Peter Martin Ray Vineyards, just next to Mount Eden. During the 2017 harvest, I transitioned more into the winemaking side and took a harvest internship at Kathryn Kennedy Winery. There, I learned about winery operations, got hands-on with winemaking, developed some vineyards, and had countless questions answered by one of North America’s most respected winemakers, Marty Mathis. Marty has been an invaluable mentor, a deep well of knowledge, and a generous supporter of my growth. I think he recognized that not only was I super passionate but I had been growing a winemaking style/philosophy that needed to be tested. In 2021, he encouraged me to try making wine on my own, and that’s when I produced my first commercial barrel. That following 2022 vintage I was trusted enough to embrace natural wine making in his facility. Those wines turned out to be really good. I continued making wine there until Spring 2025, when I decided to leave the nest. My operations now take place a Cooper-Garrod Vineyards where I have a bit more space and freedom, and I continue to embrace a more natural/old-school winemaking style. 

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Through this journey, I’ve come to see that grapes have an extraordinary ability to speak about their soils, climate, the hands of their caretakers, and place in the universe through wine. My goal is to protect that message, letting the wine evolve naturally, with as little interference as possible.

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In 2023, I became a licensed psychotherapist. Throughout my studies, I’ve been deeply influenced by the writings of Carl Jung, especially his explorations of alchemy. In alchemy, transformation is not just about turning one thing into another, but it’s also about the transformation of the alchemist. I've come to recognize winegrowing as an alchemical process for me. As vintages pass and wines evolve, so do I. Working with wine invites a deep listening to nature. When I slow down enough to really hear what the vineyard and wine has to say, I find myself more aligned with their rhythms, and with life itself. The vineyard and winery have become places of refuge and reflection, where my mind quiets and my heart syncs with something greater.

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That’s why you’ll find alchemical symbolism in the label art and branding. It’s an expression of this evolving journey, one that’s deeply personal but also bigger than me. I hope From Brent becomes not just a personal story, but a vessel for the voice of vineyards, vintages, environments, and perhaps even a moment of transformation for you. At its best, I hope these wines invite emotion, gratitude, and connection at the table.​​