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Eric White, Associate Winemaker

With some people, their wine journey begins very early in life. Eric White began his journey growing up in a cellar. His mother is the winemaker at Galena Cellars in Illinois. Eric’s family enjoyed European-style wines with their meals. Eric’s mother would always ask the family to tell about the wines they had with dinner. Eric noted that he went from the “Wow! I get to drink wine like the adults,” to drinking wine involves a cognitive process.

Eric recounted a time a nun mentioned that Jesus turned water into wine. Eric’s mother use to give wine to the church. So Eric said, “Jesus didn’t make the wine, my mother did.” He did get a stern talking to after that comment. Growing up in a winery offers many experiences. He has vineyard experience, harvest, stomping grapes with his feet, and punching down. He realized when he was young, that winemaking is a unique job.

At twelve years old, Eric was given a challenge that paved his future path. He was allowed to make a wine out of Marechal Foch. In 1999 Eric harvested the grapes, crushed, fermented, punched down and completed all the other winemaking steps. He was allowed to name the wine and he named it Eric the Red. The name does reference his name but also an explorer, someone who tamed a new frontier just as he was trying to tame Marechal Foch.  The Eric the Red wine is still made at Galena Cellars. This experience helped Eric to decide to major in enology.

During his college internship, Eric was offered a job at Heitz Wine Cellars in Napa Valley.  During his time at Heitz, he progressed to his current position, Associate Winemaker. Eric hopes one day to return to Illinois to take over his mother’s winery, but that is in the future since his mother is still enjoying making wine.

Cheers,
Terry

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