Big Basin's Bradley Brown and Lindsey Otis. Photo by Jamie Soja.
Lindsey Otis’ travels as a winemaker have taken her all over the world, but she finally found her place in the Santa Cruz Mountains, close to home.
After graduating from UC-Davis’ prestigious oenology program, she headed to France. She then spent time working at Saratoga’s Cooper-Garrod winery and later Bonny Doon Vineyard in Santa Cruz. She moved to New Zealand. She made shiraz and riesling in Australia. Back in the States, she worked in Napa Valley at Silver Oak Cellars, makers of one the region’s bestselling cabernet sauvignons. But Napa wasn’t for her.
“It was very clear to me I didn’t belong in Napa,” she says, recalling how she chafed under a conservative winemaking culture.
From Napa, Otis headed west to Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley and the Williams Selyem Winery, maker of one of California’s most lusted-after pinot noirs. But still Otis, 30, longed for home.
She’d grown up on Santa Cruz’s Westside a short walk from the beach and had developed a love of quirkiness, a willingness to take risks and a distaste for buttoned-down, textbook style. Most of all she wanted the latitude to create.
So when Bradley Brown, winemaker and owner of Big Basin Vineyards near Boulder Creek, posted a job for assistant winemaker, she jumped on it. So did about 100 other people. Brown says he picked Otis over all the rest because of her technical expertise breadth of experience were big selling points—and because she knew the area well.
“She really wanted to be here,” he says.
As a winemaker, Otis says she wanted to come home to Santa Cruz because she loves the multitude of microclimates and soils in the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation. And people here, she says, “aren’t afraid of making wines that taste different.”
Otis looks the Westsider part, with her Haut surfshop sweatshirt, oversized sunglasses and straight blond hair. But a taste of some of the vintages she’s had a hand in during her 18 months at Big Basin reveals a winemaker of real talent. She oversees production of the winery’s white and rose wines while Brown handles the reds, mainly pinot noir and syrah. But in reality they collaborate on everything.
Otis was attracted to Big Basin’s commitment to “natural winemaking,” a minimalist approach that involves using wild yeasts and as little intervention as possible. She calls it “guiding the grapes to the bottle” to produce wines that are “transparent” and “pure.”
Keep an eye out for the winery’s first-ever riesling. It’s still in the barrel, but already the 2010 vintage is a racy beauty with floral aromas and juicy flavors of pineapple and tropical fruit backed with well-edged acidity.
While Big Basin has made its reputation with its syrah, the winery’s pinot noirs are outstanding, particularly those from Corralitos’ Woodruff Vineyard. Otis and Brown collaborated on the 2009 and 2010 vintages, and they are flat-out gorgeous wines built with tannin and heft. They are made to last.
“As a winemaker I like that people can share in it and that you’re passing on a message of place,” says Otis.
