Matt Duffy grew up in central California during the 1980’s.  Wine was occasionally on the family table and certainly played a role during the holidays, especially when Uncle Bob was present, as he was involved in the wine industry. Gallo was the big player in the area.  But it was a Heitz Martha’s Vineyard Cab that really stirred Matt’s soul and led him to begin bringing wine to celebrate life’s special moments. Then he landed a job at Twisted Oak, first in the tasting room, then in the cellar, and there it began. His winemaking career had taken off. Then he met Sara Vaughn, and together they decided to launch their own wine brand. Here’s Matt’s story.

Where did you grow up?  What was your early childhood life like?  Did your parents drink wine?  Was it a part of family celebrations?

I grew up in Modesto, California. I was a product of the 1980s and especially the 1990s, and was raised in a middle-class neighborhood and public schools. My parents drank wine on occasion, and I had an uncle who was really into wine, and he was responsible for helping me get into wine in my early 20s. It’s not like anyone in my family had a wine collection, but wine was around the table and certainly at holidays. Growing up in Modesto, you have an awareness of the wine industry since there is a little winery called Gallo, headquartered there. I may have become acquainted with some of Gallo’s “wine” products in my teenage years!

When did you first get interested in wine? When you think back about your tasting experiences, which wine stands out (or perhaps which wines stand out) that convinced you to become a winemaker? Where was it/were they from?

During my college years at UC Berkeley, I started to develop an interest in or awareness in the cultural aspects of wine and how special this beverage is to humanity. It’s not like I was drinking Burgundy in my dorm room, but I started to read more about wine, linger in the wine aisle at Berkeley Bowl and just start to take it all in. Maybe I’d spend 10 bucks on a Spanish Red wine if we were having a dinner party and playing adult. My Uncle Bob started making wine in his Paso Robles garage with a friend during that time. He also worked in retail, selling wine during that time for some wineries and bottle shops. I would go to visit him on a weekend to help him pick grapes, then we’d crush them in the driveway and garage, drink some wine, and do the thing. Then I would drive back to Berkeley with a case of wine. It was a lot of fun. I remember a dinner that my Aunt Diane and Uncle Bob made for me that started to bring the picture together – lamb chops with an old bottle of Heitz Martha’s Vineyard. It was my first “light bulb” wine and food experience, where the two together created something that was incredible, and made me sit up and take notice. When I turned in my final thesis paper at Cal, my roommate and I went up to Napa Valley to go wine tasting. We went to Mondavi and another one, I can’t remember. Looking back, I think I was starting to use wine in to help commemorate some of life’s ceremonial moments.

How did you get started making wine? Did you attend a formal educational program, or did you learn on the job with mentors who guided you?

My first job in the wine industry was in the tasting room at Twisted Oak Winery in Murphys, CA. That was in 2004. I had graduated from Cal a couple of years earlier as an English major and was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be a journalist—I had been the sports editor of the Daily Californian, but that was going to be a hard job to get at that time. I thought about teaching. I ended up in Murphys to give myself a summer to “figure it out,” and that’s how I ended up at Twisted Oak. After a couple of months in the tasting room, harvest started, and the winemaker invited me to work on the crush pad. It was the first harvest at Twisted Oak’s brand new winery—set on a hilltop, gravity flow, cave, the whole nine yards. We were a small crew—the winemaker was Scott Klann, and there was an assistant winemaker, and then me. That was it. So guess who did all the cleaning, punchdowns, tank digouts, and cleaning the press at the end of the night? That was my life for two months or so. Scott became an amazing friend and mentor. He was super fun, encouraging, had great taste in music, and most importantly, was tolerant of my various screw-ups. We had a great time, and I came back and worked the 2005 harvest as well. This was a job? A career? Sign me up.

Good winemakers are passionate about their craft.  Which wine are you the most proud of?

I’ve made a couple of hundred wines for Vaughn Duffy at this point. There are a few wines—and certain moments in the process of making those wines—that stick with you. The first wine that I made for Vaughn Duffy was a 2009 Pinot Noir from Suacci Vineyard on the Sonoma Coast. The wine turned out exactly how I envisioned it before we even picked the grapes. People loved it. That was really encouraging, and we kept going. We actually opened a bottle of that first wine at our company holiday dinner this past December, and it was still drinking beautifully. That was a really cool moment.

You specialize in Pinot Noir from cool climate AVAs.  What drove your decision
to source grapes from the Petaluma Gap?

We made our first wine from the Petaluma Gap in 2021. Before that, all of our Pinot Noir was coming from the Russian River Valley. After exploring most of the corners of the RRV, I was just excited to work with a vineyard in a new area. It took a couple of years to find our way to the Petaluma Gap vineyards, from which we are now sourcing. I love that the AVA has a defining feature with the wind and that we can hang fruit until the later parts of the growing season. Petaluma Gap also makes sense as an AVA. You can see the gap, feel the wind. Some of our AVAs in Sonoma County are rather sprawling; they overlap, and it just doesn’t make a ton of sense if you are trying to make site-specific or vineyard-designated wines. With the Petaluma Gap AVA, there really is a “there,” there.

You also make Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Zinfandel.  How do you go about deciding what varieties to make?

Pinot Noir is our North Star with Vaughn Duffy. It’s what I love to make and drink, and I feel that I’ve gotten to be pretty capable as a Pinot winemaker. Over the years, we’ve made other wines that we either like to drink or that would complement the portfolio, and some we’ve just made on a whim because we heard about a cool vineyard and wanted to give it a shot. Sauvignon Blanc was Sara’s idea and the wine she really loved at the time. We found a great SB vineyard in 2013, and we’ve been making it ever since. In 2021 we made Grenache because it’s a wine that I love drinking and not made before, and we had the chance to source it from an awesome vineyard. We haven’t made Grenache since that year. Zinfandel was the first red wine that I got into, back when I was making garage wine with my Uncle Bob. It’s California’s heritage grape, and I am a California boy, so that seemed like a natural one to make. In 2024 we made Cabernet Sauvignon for the first time. Making other types of wine besides Pinot really helps me expand my skillset as a winemaker, and it’s just a fun change of pace.

What do you hope people will experience when they drink your wine? What drives your passion for making wine?

That’s a great question. Ultimately, it’s an honor to make a product that people choose to enjoy at life’s most significant moments and with people they love: weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, and first dates that turn into marriages. Wine is part of all of that, and it’s amazing to think people choose our wines to be part of those moments. My passion for making wine comes from the fact that it’s not something I am going to get to do many times. I’ve had 20 harvests, and if I am lucky, I’ll get 20 more. That’s not very many. Harvest is magic. So, I am very motivated to do the things I need to do in order to do another harvest.

Winemaking is hard work. The industry is facing headwinds. Have you ever felt “maybe I should consider another path?” But are there moments during harvest that make you smile and think you wouldn’t do anything else?

Oh, I have definitely thought about getting out of the business at various points. It is hard work and hard to make a living. Our big break happened in 2023 when our Pinot Noir won the North Coast Wine Challenge. That happened at one of those times when I was really questioning, “Should I keep doing this?” I actually was texting my landlord about possibly leaving our tasting room when I got the call that we won that big award. And then everything changed, and I haven’t looked back since. Working in wine has taught me a lot about persistence.

You’ve worked with Vinify and other custom crush operations.  Do you still work with them or any other wineries as a consulting winemaker?

I ran Vinify for 10 years, and that’s how I learned the bulk of my winemaking and, more importantly, established so many great relationships and friendships in this business. Running a custom crush is really hard, thankless work. But I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything, because I was constantly challenged and learned so much. These days, my main focus is operating and growing Vaughn Duffy, And, I do a little work as a consulting winemaker for some other small wine brands.

The name of your winery is Vaughn Duffy Wines.  Tell us about your partner/co-owner/wife, Sara Vaughn, and how you met and what motivated you to launch your own brand?  What role does Sara play in helping shape the business?

Sara and I met right after working my first harvest in 2004. I moved from the Sierra Foothills to San Francisco, and we met through friends. She was finishing her Master’s degree in Speech Language Pathology at San Francisco State. We both really enjoyed sharing wine and going wine tasting. After a couple of years living together in the City, we moved to Sonoma County so that I could start working in the cellar again and pursue winemaking. After a couple of years as a cellar rat, we decided that if I wanted to make wine, it would be easier for us to buy a ton of grapes and do our own thing than to try to get some winery to hire me as their winemaker. Sara works full-time as a speech therapist, and we have two kids. Somehow, she still manages to find the time to support the winery as our bookkeeper and help me figure out final blends.

You have two adorable children, Lee and Fay.  Do they help you make your wine?  Have they asked you why you make wine?  Do they express any interest in following in your footsteps?

I bring them to the winery and tasting room from time to time. Vaughn Duffy has always been a part of their lives. It’s very important to me that we do a “family sort” at least once a year. It’s a great excuse for the four of us to do something together, and it keeps them connected to the winery. I am not sure if they will want to follow me in the wine business, but if they do, it will certainly be really special for me to share that with them and to work with them. Lee is old enough now to help at our wine club pick-up parties, and it is very fun for me to have him there.