Someone once said that “sisters are different flowers from the same garden.” Different may be the key word. To hear sisters who are in business together in the North Bay talk about their personal and professional relationships, they do seem to share a common denominator: they are definitely different from one another.
But those differences are the secret ingredients that make their businesses successful.
For the love of bubbles
Sharon Cohn is the eldest of three sisters who co-own Breathless Wines in Healdsburg, known for its award-winning sparkling wine. Her middle sister Rebecca Faust is two years younger, and her sister Cynthia Faust is 10 years younger. They grew up on a small acreage near Kenwood; the Oakmont community nearby was under construction when they were children.
“We had horses and as kids we used to ride through the hills together around Kenwood,” says Cohn. Rebecca Faust remembers those days well. “We’d take our horses back and forth across Highway 12, because the traffic was so sparse back then,” she adds.
The sisters’ parents were schoolteachers, and they enjoyed extended summer vacations together as a family, mostly in a 34-foot recreational vehicle. “We would travel all over the states,” says Cohn. “Backpacking in Yosemite and in the Rocky Mountains, for instance. Our Breathless label reminds us of our mother, because as we would hike up a mountain she would look back at us and ask, ‘Are you coming?’ I was the tomboy of the three of us. I pursued track and Cynthia was a softball player. We all liked our sports.”
Easy Bake ovens were in the house as they grew up, “but that didn’t turn us into gourmet cooks,” laughs Cohn. “Our mother was a fabulous baker, though, and she made the best chocolate chip cookies. Those cookies were our reward for coming home from school and sitting down to do our homework.”
Cohn was the first to leave home, at the age of 17. She joined the Air Force, she says, to see the world. But she ended up in Minot, North Dakota, for most of her military service, working in law enforcement. She later used the GI bill to train to be a dental hygienist, a career she is still active in today.
The three Breathless sisters went in different career directions. While Cohn entered the dental field, Rebecca became a certified public accountant. Right out of high school Cynthia spent a year living in Sweden as an exchange student. “That was an incredible experience,” she says. She later earned a business management degree.
With all three living back in Sonoma County again as adults, they became closer and started their own families. They also began kicking around the idea of having their own sparkling wine brand. Breathless Wines was launched in 2012, with a label honoring their mother, who later passed away from a genetic lung disease. “Our mom never smoked or drank in her life but her daughters loved bottles of bubbly for celebrations,” says Cohn. “In the end she was taking no breath for granted. She believed in living life to the fullest.”
With the name for their brand nailed down, they needed an image on the bottle that would reflect their vision. They chose an illustration depicting a young woman sitting on top of a sparkling wine cork. “For me, the most obvious breathless moment is when someone is about to pop the cork,” says Cynthia Faust. “Or you reach the top of a mountain and are breathless and overwhelmed by the view. The girl on the label is living in the moment, she’s joyful. Our mom sought to give us joy and to push us forward.”
The first vintage of Breathless sparkling wine went on to win the Sweepstakes Award at the 2018 Sonoma County Harvest Fair, before the sisters even had a tasting room. They now welcome visitors to a unique spot at 499 Moore Lane in Healdsburg created from recycled shipping containers.
The duties of running Breathless are equally divided between the sisters. “We three pretty much stay in our own lanes,” says Cohn. “I do most of the management of the company and we have a great team. I’m also moving into the wholesale part of the business now. It was time to grow up and get out there. Rebecca takes care of all our financials and Cynthia is connected with all the inventories.”
Though they are very different personalities who don’t see each other every day, the sisters are in constant contact via text and emails. “We’re always checking on each other’s kids and kicking around personal stuff, or seeking the others’ opinions about business decisions,” says Cynthia Faust.
“We really lucked out by picking the sparkling wine business to be in––it’s been great fun,” says Rebecca Faust.
From tragedy to triumph
Sudden tragedy brought together Rachel Blum and her sister Jaclyn Blum Guelfi as business partners. For many years they led separate careers and separate lives––Rachel was active in real estate and had a background in other business environments, including time spent living on the East Coast, while Jaclyn worked for their father, Leon, owner of Window Factory in Greenbrae. The company installs windows and doors, sourcing their product line from mostly California-based manufacturers. When Leon died unexpectedly in 2010, the sisters stepped in to take over the business at a rough time for the construction industry.
“Jaclyn was doing the books and accounting work for Window Factory at the time of dad’s death, and I was living in the East Bay,” says Blum. The sisters rallied to figure out how to save the business and cut costs. Because of the recession, the business was already in a bit of a bleak period when Leon passed, she adds.
“In 2010, things weren’t going so well in the economy, and we had to pick up the pieces and almost start from scratch. We never fully closed when dad died, but we went down to a skeleton crew. The base of the business was there, but we had to figure out how to run it differently. We knew we had to get small to get bigger again. Our first goal was to minimize expenses and move different locations into one place.”
The sisters are more than three years apart in age—Jaclyn is the eldest—but always had a good relationship growing up, says Blum. “But we are very different personalities. I refer to it as the ‘left brain-right brain’ phenomenon. I’m logically minded and not as creative as Jaclyn, and she taps more into the creative side. She prefers to remain in the back office and not work in customer service.
“On the other hand, I work directly with customers and salespeople, and on marketing efforts and that side of the business. It just came natural for the division of labor to be handled that way. I moved into doing some of the duties our dad had done, and Jaclyn has continued handling the other side of the business.”
To help keep Window Factory afloat during the recession, the sisters had to sell their father’s house, adds Blum. “But the most important thing was to keep the business itself and get rid of the overhead. So we talked it through, with the goal of creating a clean slate and moving forward.”
The idea of selling the business wasn’t an option for the sisters. “It was Jaclyn’s source of income, and it would have been a huge deal for her to walk away from that,” says Blum. “So we decided that if we were going to make the commitment, we would give it our all.”
Blum says that as they have aged and are many years into their business partnership, there’s a whole lot less bickering. “It’s funny, because we can fight like sisters to this day but then we move on from it very quickly. There’s nothing we disagree on that can’t be worked out. We are sisters first and business partners second. We balance each other well, but that took time. Now we have a very solid partnership and we always try to make any big business decisions together. We communicate about everything.”
The sisters each have two young children, and the cousins are very close. “There are times we might prefer not to see each other on weekends, but we support each other’s kids and their various activities,” she says. “We just try not to talk about business when we’re all together as a family.”
Blum says Window Factory “can only get so big,” and annual revenues stand at approximately $3 million. “And that’s probably where we will stay for a while. We’re in a comfortable place. We have grown steadily every year. At this point in our lives, with young kids, it’s not the time to become too big for our boots. As a locally owned business, we went into this wanting it to work out. But we’re cautious and do everything in small steps.”
Most recently, the sisters purchased the building where the business has been located for years, and they have a five-year goal to boost selling their services directly to contractors.
“My sister and I like to work and like what we do,” says Blum. “Even if somebody offered to buy the business, that’s not something we want to do. We just enjoy it too much.”
Combining passions
Samantha Tilley just moved back to Sonoma County from Connecticut to partner with her sister Sarah Quider to launch Healdsburg Bubble Bar, a new tasting room spotlighting Champagne and sparkling wines from around the world. The two sisters grew up in Sonoma County, first in Petaluma as young children and later in Guerneville.
“In the 1970s we lived on River Road next to Korbel Champagne Cellars,” says Tilley. “It was a beautiful property. Our father was an avid gardener and a great cook. He baked bread and made croissants, and he always prided himself on providing a family lifestyle very in tune with good food and cooking with wine. Maybe that’s where our passion for it started.”
The sisters are two of seven siblings, with the youngest sibling being the only boy. They are widely scattered around the country, but brother Jim, a home brewer, lives in the Bay Area and shares a passion for food with Quider and Tilley. “We have a siblings text exchange and are always sharing recipes.”
Their mother, says Quider, was their role model from the start. “She was a championship swimmer and competed in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. At one time she held several world records and she’s in the Swimming Hall of Fame. She also put herself through college in her 30s. She taught us how to go after what we want. She was a go-getter, and we share her tenacity to ‘go for it.’” Their mother, now 94, lives in Healdsburg.
Though their father was the chef in the house, Quider and Tilley would come home after school when they were young and fix a snack. “Our favorite was Top Ramen. We would add different ingredients to try to jazz it up and make it interesting,” says Quider.
Tilley says she and her sister had a typical childhood, with many siblings making for lots of fun. Later, they began to have a shared passion for food and wine, and Tilley got her first job in hospitality working in the kitchen at Domaine Chandon. Quider, meanwhile, was working in the wine industry in Napa Valley, and the two would spend weekends with their spouses cooking and trying new wines.
“While I was at Chandon, I met a friend who offered me a position in New York City in apparel design sales and manufacturing, and I did that for many years,” says Tilley. “After the 9/11 disaster, I went into the restaurant business. I was fortunate to be in a position to do what I really wanted to do and so went back into hospitality.” Tilley has operated a restaurant in Connecticut for many years, and upon moving back to Sonoma County she has leased the building to another person to continue operating the eatery.
For years, the two sisters routinely discussed creating a business together to tap into their experience in the wine and hospitality industries, and they spent many hours searching for just the right property. “When Sarah found the building [at 134 North St.], it came into clarity for us—we said, ‘let’s do this,’” according to Tilley. A small Airbnb unit is also being created above the tasting room.
Quider is vice president of winemaking for Foley Family Wines and will continue in that position as the sisters launch the Bubble Bar venture (with a target opening date in mid to late January). Tilley will manage the new tasting room, and she and Quider are in the process of developing the sparkling wine menu. “We will focus on sparklers from many nations, many unique labels you can’t find in most retail outlets, and also offer a selection of beer and nonalcoholic wine. I’m working with distributors now on picking the final choices.”
There will always be a blind tasting offered to interested sippers, too, she adds. “The tasting room will look like a French bistro, and we’ll serve some food bites, as well. We want it to be a special place for celebrations and at the same time teach people about sparkling wine.”
