BURROWING OWL ESTATE WINERY WOMEN OF WINE

At Burrowing Owl Estate Winery, we salute all the amazing women in the BC Wine Industry and women everywhere who inspire us in all walks of life.

Two such women who inspire us are Patty Emerson-Heery, our Assistant Winemaker, and Julie Levesque, our Wine Lab Technician. Patty and Julie both come from backgrounds rooted in chemistry, and both coupled their knowledge with great love and appreciation for wine. Today we'd like to share a little of their stories with you as we recognize these amazing women and their contributions to Burrowing Owl Estate Winery.

Both women work tirelessly and with great passion to ensure the consistently high standards and quality goes into each bottle of Burrowing Owl Wine. We raise a glass to Patty and Julie… and we thank them for their commitment to great wine. Cheers!

ABOUT PATTY – ASSISTANT WINEMAKER. Patty originally from Los Angeles, moved to the San Francisco area of California where she had started her career in Kinesiology. Living close to California’s wine country, she became interested in wine and winemaking. As a chemistry major, she turned her growing passion and enjoyment of wine towards a master’s degree in Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis. Her aptitude for the ‘science of wine’ brought about her career change. After graduating, Patty worked for several wineries in the Sonoma County area, and then travelled to New Zealand where she continued honing her winemaking skills working for Kim Crawford in the Marlborough wine region. After New Zealand, Patty travelled for several months in Italy, Spain, and France to learn more about winemaking in these regions. She came back to North America and made the move to BC where she joined the Burrowing Owl Estate Winery team. Patty worked her way through the cellar and the lab at Burrowing Owl and eventually took on the Assistant Winemaker’s role where she is today.

"We are a relatively small team, so each person has a significant role in ensuring the consistency and quality of our wines. It’s a year-round effort, which starts in the vineyard during the growing season, continues into harvest with long hours and the decisions of when to pick and how to ferment the wines, and ends with blending and bottling. Each step is important and a delicate balance of art and science, and we work together to get the very best out of each vintage. Each wine is unique depending on the conditions of that particular year, and I’m really proud of every bottle of Burrowing Owl wine that we produce." – Patty Emerson-Heery

ABOUT JULIE - LAB TECHNICIAN. Julie comes from a longstanding career in the biotech industry, where she worked as a Manufacturing Manager/Production Supervisor for a couple of medical companies in Vancouver. Julie’s journey to the south Okanagan came in the past year when she moved back from Vancouver to her home in Summerland. When a position came up at Burrowing Owl Estate Winery, she applied for the lab tech position where she has been working for the past 6 months. Her deep knowledge of biochemistry paired with a passion for wine helped her switch careers. Julie now uses her science and lab work skills to ensure the process of winemaking is properly measured and controlled from harvest to fermentation, barrel aging, and right through to the bottling process.

"To be welcomed into the wine industry and work-culture at Burrowing Owl has been a great experience so far and I am appreciative to be given the opportunity to transfer my scientific skills from the Biotechnology industry into the wine industry and learn new things. The wine industry requires a commitment by the employees, great work ethic and teamwork to ensure the highest quality wine is produced and I am happy to be part of this new work family/team at one of the top wineries in Canada.” — Julie Levesque

#internationalwomensday #burrowingowlwines #bcwineries #winemaking #winemakerslife #BestofBC #burrowingowlestatewinery #canadianwine