Linda and Carlos Chavez enjoy a namesake brand at their Healdsburg winery. [Photo by Duncan Garrett]
Wine means different things to different people. Some take it seriously and want to distinguish all the unique flavors and ingredients. Others are just looking for something to pair with a nice meal. There are also those imbibers who simply heard a glass a day keeps the doctor away.
But there is a select group who see wine as more than an oenophilic pleasure—it’s a way of life. Among them are Linda and Carlos Chavez who run the small artisan winery, Chavez Family Cellars.
But life for Carlos and Linda wasn’t always about winemaking. In fact, they both say when growing up they would never have imagined they were destined for the wine industry.
Carlos, 54, immigrated to the United States from El Salvador in 1984 as the country was in the middle of a decade-long civil war. Relocated to California, Carlos was accepted to UC Davis, majoring in Spanish and a minor in political science and graduating in 1993. Meanwhile, Linda, 53, was born and raised in Sacramento in a Mexican-Irish household and in the 1990s trained for a career in human resources.
Linda and Carlos met in 1995 at a salsa dance party in Dixon. Linda was working as an assistant in a human resources department and Carlos was a safety instructor in a risk management division. They talked for two hours straight about and how they dreamed of becoming entrepreneurs. That two-hour conversation blossomed into a lasting relationship—as the couple were married three years later.
Not long after relocating to Ventura County following their wedding, Carlos’s mother died—and the couple had a realization that life is short and that if they wanted to fulfill their aspirations of owning their own business they needed to act before it was too late.
In 1999, Linda and Carlos took the plunge and started their first company, Safety & Environmental Compliance Associates—an agriculture risk management company. Its founding headquarters was the couple’s two-bedroom condo.
Linda says she isn’t a risk taker by nature. “I married a risk taker, so by nature that made me a risk taker,” she says. “After being married for 25 years, I have definitely become more like one.”
The risk-management business eventually brought them to Sonoma County and the couple settled in Healdsburg in 2000. It was this very same year that Carlos and Linda decided to try their hands at winemaking. Even though Carlos didn’t have any winemaking experience, he thought he would give it a shot using the knowledge he gained from being out in the vineyards conducting work for their risk management company.
“I didn’t have a great background in wine but during our health-and-safety work in the vineyards, it catapulted me to really love the grape process and the wine-making process,” Carlos says. “I learned most of my winemaking from talking to the winery workers that I was teaching health and safety.”
Linda says after they caught the wine-country “bug” a neighbor mentioned that state law allowed residents to “make a couple of barrels” for home use. “And so we got a hold of some second-harvest grapes and did our first-ever garage wine,” she says.
Carlos says the recipes they used then are the same they use now—including their multi-award-winning cabernet sauvignon.
From 2000 to 2005, Carlos and Linda made “garage wine” with the help of friends and neighbors who would join in picking the grapes, crushing and returning a year later to bottle it. “And then everyone would take three or four cases home,” says Carlos.
After five years of making garage wine and getting rave reviews from family and friends, Linda and Carlos decided to take the next step and make wine commercially. In 2006, they signed a contract to purchase grapes and crushed the fruit at a licensed facility—their winemaking had finally become official.
Linda credits the positive feedback as what ultimately pushed them into making wine commercially. “People believing in you is so powerful—it really is,” she says. “(Without that) I don’t think we could have ever jumped out of making wine in our garage as a hobby. We already had a business.”
Now in 2023, Chavez Family Cellars is going into its 17th harvest—and Linda and Carlos are still running Safety & Environmental Compliance Associates. Even after all these years, Linda and Carlos’s passion and dedication for wine is the same as when they first started. Chavez Family Cellars currently produces four different varietals: cabernet sauvignon, rose cabernet, sauvignon blanc and a late-harvest muscat. While they take pride in all their wine, the cabernet sauvignon—the Carlin’s Blend Cabernet, named for their daughter Carlin, 19—is a particular highlight, earning multiple gold medals from various contests. Also close to their hearts is Elsa’s Blend, named after their 14-year-old daughter.
Carlos is still operating as the head winemaker and has the same philosophy he had when he first started: making good wine means having good grapes.
“At the end of the day, you have to have good grapes, optimum grapes,” Carlos says. “And your winemaking process has to be clean to be able to make good wine.” He pays particular attention to leveling the acids and sugars and ensuring the barrels are “optimum.”
Over the years Chavez Family Cellars has earned a reputation as a small artisan winery that gives back. Both Linda and Carlos have years of volunteering experience; working to benefit the community has always been a priority. Carlos was named 2014’s “Mister Healdsburg” in recognition of his fundraising efforts on behalf of the local Raven Theater. Carlos is also a past president of the Hispanic Chamber of Congress of Sonoma County and currently serves on the board of La Voz de Los Viñedos, a Sonoma County Winegrowers program to advance the skills and training of vineyard workers.
Meanwhile, Linda is a past president of Soroptimist International of Healdsburg and was a volunteer member for 12 years. She also currently serves the Sonoma County Office of Education on its School District Organization Committee.
Carlos and Linda have also regularly donated and poured their wine at the annual Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Sonoma County Scholarship Gala.
Linda and Carlos take pride in being a small artisan winery competing with other big corporations in Sonoma County—but they understand it comes with challenges. They don’t have the same margin of error as other bigger wineries, they say—everything they do must be well thought out and calculated to ensure they get the most out of it.
“We’re a husband-and-wife team,” says Linda. “That’s it. There’s no staff.”
To make their wine, they rent space at an operating winery. The cost for an artisanal winery to produce their product is “more significant” when you don’t have high volume, they add.
“It’s difficult for small vintners like us because you know you’re creating a product that’s boutique, and you’re doing it at someone else’s facility because you don’t have the resources to have your own facility,” explains Carlos. “You always have to be planning what you’re doing to make sure that your time is allocated appropriately.”
Another major challenge: Getting local shelf space. “Being artisan, we’re not attractive to the common distributor because we just don’t have the volume,” says Linda. “It can be very challenging to get into a local supermarket.”
Fortunately for Carlos and Linda, their Chavez Family Cellars wines have long been available at the Healdsburg independent grocery market Big Johns; owners Kim and John Lloyd have stocked the brand for over a decade. These kinds of relationships play an invaluable role in their success, say the Chavezes.
As to what they love most about winemaking, they both say meeting new people and seeing them enjoy their wine.
“I love pouring wine for people and getting their feedback,” says Linda.
“Seeing them smile after they taste the wine—it’s rewarding, and it makes me happy when they do that,” adds Carlos.
As for future plans, Carlos and Linda are hoping they can open a tasting room sometime this coming year.
“I would really like to see our brand continue to expand and have a place to invite people,” Linda says. “All of these years it’s been fine to be in some restaurants and some retail stores and selling directly to consumers, but it would be really nice to have a space for people to taste wines and host events.”
As to any advice they would give someone considering selling wine commercially, Linda says it’s all about knowing what it is going to take.
“You really need to consider the amount of time that it is going to take,” she says. “I’m a firm believer that if you want to do something—you should do it.
“Don’t let anyone ever tell you you can’t do something.”
Check out Chavez Family Cellars at chavezfamilycellars.com.
