Philippa Ward is the daughter of Saintsbury founder Richard Ward. She has been highly active with Saintsbury Winery having lived in Napa until 2008. Nowadays she has made her name in real estate but her ties to the family business has never been stronger as a partner/owner and one of the faces of the winery. Philippa travels the country participating in wine tastings and speaking at wine dinners on behalf of Saintsbury. As well as pouring at charity tastings for lovers of the Burgundian Varietals. Saintsbury was founded in 1981 by winemakers Richard Ward and David Graves. The winery was named in honor of George Saintsbury, an English man of letters best known for his, Notes on a Cellar Book. The winery established its reputation early on for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and has long been a champion of these varieties. In 1983, Carneros was granted AVA status. At the southernmost section of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, Carneros is the coolest AVA of each of these two regions. The moderating breeze that flows off the adjacent San Pablo Bay allows for a longer growing season for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, which are historically early ripening varietals. An important part of the success of Saintsbury has been its unwavering commitment not just to demonstrating that world-class Pinot Noir could be a California mainstay, but also the founders’ commitment to the vineyards of Carneros as a source of outstanding grapes. The appellation was officially created in 1983, two years after Saintsbury’s founding. In the more than a quarter century since jumping in to wine, Dick and Dave have always believed that innovation and a critical look at the vineyard, terroir and winemaking is the best route to increasing quality. Experimentation in the vineyard and in the cellar led to the early adoption of new Pinot Noir clones, the acceptance of new and intricate irrigation regimens, and critical evaluations of the impact of filtering and must manipulation, all results of a “philosophy of investigation” that have helped make Saintsbury one of America’s foremost Pinot Noir producers. According to the Wine Spectator’s Matt Kramer, Saintsbury not only “single-handedly demolished the old assertion that California cannot create Pinot Noirs of a Burgundian standard of delicacy and finesse,” but also “no winery has been more methodical in its investigation and pursuit of newly available Pinot Noir clones than Saintsbury.”