This is an exclusive one-on-one interview with Andrea Brambila, winemaker for Chloé Wines in California. In addition to discussing Andrea’s approach to blending the art and chemistry to make great wine, we also explore topics such as:
- How and when did Andrea realize that she wanted to become a winemaker?
- Which type of glass does she recommend for a full-bodied Chardonnay?
- Why you shouldn’t judge wine based on your first sip?
- Which foods and delicious recipes pair well with Chloé Chardonnay and Pinot Noir?
Natalie MacLean: Andrea Brambilla is director of winemaking at the wine Group, and she’s been part of the wine industry for 19 years. She was born and raised in a small agricultural community in the California’s Central Valley.
After attending California Polytechnic State University, San Luis. She followed in the agricultural footsteps of her father and grandfathers. Andrea began her career with a passion for chemistry as a laboratory technician at another California winery.
She was intrigued by the entire winemaking process as well as the final results in the bottle. In 2010, she joined the winemaking team at the wine Group and then in 2023 was thrilled to take on the role of winemaker for the Chloe Wine Collection.
She loves the challenges and challenges that each vintage bring, the adventure of blending art and chemistry, and takes great pride in creating these delicious, thoughtfully crafted wines. Andrea, welcome! It’s so great to have you with us here.
Andrea Brambila: Thank you. It’s great to be here today to talk to you about wine.
Chloe Wines Chardonnay
California, United States
Natalie MacLean: All right. My favorite subject, and probably yours. Before we get into the tasting, what was the exact moment you realized you wanted to become a winemaker?
Andrea Brambila: So it really was my first season as a winemaker, as you mentioned.
Andrea Brambila: I started out as a lab tech, which piqued my interest for winemaking. I mean, learning about the chemistry. My first memorable wine moment was her first harvest. I got to be hands on from the start of the process to the end. Getting to work with other members of the team who help created the beautiful blend that is Chloe was memorable.
And again, back to agricultural. You’re taking this raw ingredient and creating something beautiful from the grapes that are on the vines every year. So it’s kind of a mix of nature and science. It’s beautiful thing.
Natalie MacLean: It is a beautiful thing and I just love how wine brings that all together. I’ve long said you could do a liberal arts degree with wine as the hub, and I think a lot of college students would love that, actually. But it brings together your art, your science, your commerce, your geography, your history, everything.
So you’ve said you see art and chemistry coming together in the creation of a great wine. Is there anything that would surprise us in the way that those two aspects of wine blend together?
Andrea Brambila: Nothing surprising.
Andrea Brambila: I mean, I always like to explain it as it’s you’re taking ingredients like if you were baking cookies or making a sauce or something like that at home. I mean, it’s the same thing with wine. You’re taking this grape and you’re learning what spices you have on the rack. So it’s working with yeast companies and oak companies, and it’s a blending.
It’s a magical. It’s like you’re marinating something and that’s what you’re doing with these wines, is you’re taking that grape, that varietal, and wanting to enhance the beauty of that grape and create something special for people to enjoy on a daily basis for celebrations, just everyday life to make you feel good and to bring a smile to somebody’s face.
Natalie MacLean: Absolutely. And I think that’s what we why we watch cooking shows because we can see those raw ingredients. And then the amazing transformation wine has a challenge in that it takes a whole year. So you’d have to do time lapse photography. But it’s the same concept. It’s like these raw grapes, even like vine seeds, whatever.
Natalie MacLean: And then you’ve got this wine in the bottle. All right, let’s taste. So we are tasting this beautiful Chloe Chardonnay from the cool climate region of Monterey, California. Why did you choose this wine, Andrea?
Andrea Brambila: This wine. I mean, Chardonnay is a classic varietal. It is very easy to drink. The California Chardonnay is the white wine of choice. And this is just a beautiful description and blends of what California grapes bring.
Pappardelle Pasta with Wild Mushrooms
Natalie MacLean: Absolutely. California is it’s a signature wine for sure. Flagship. And I poured my wine into two glasses. Which type of glass would you recommend? I’ve got sort of the bigger bowl, and then I’ve got sort of a more standard tasting glass, not the ISO but you know. Yeah, yeah. Which one would you go with?
Andrea Brambila: I would go with the standard glass. But the other thing I would say is I think with wine people will take the first sip and be like, decide whether they like it or not. On that first sip, I would really encourage somebody who maybe takes the first sip and isn’t very excited about the first sip to put your glass back down, take another second and take it a second sip.
Andrea Brambila: I think it’s really important that you give the wine a second chance. One, it’s going to open up, it’s going to breathe a little bit more. And then what I always like to tell people is wine is a memory, right?
Your memory, your senses. And so maybe what I’m going to smell, maybe not what you’re smelling, but that’s because it comes from our memory banks. When we were little and growing up. Aromas, flavors that we’re used to smelling and tasting. So wine should be, I think, enjoyed by everybody. And it shouldn’t be where you think you have to know exactly what the person is tasting.
Chloe Wines Pinot Noir
Monterey County, California, United States
Natalie MacLean: Absolutely. I love that, Andre. Unpacking a few things that you said. My partner Daniel, I always say wait till the second or even third sip before you make a decision on this wine. Because when you first come to wine, no matter what wine it is, your mouth hasn’t even speaking of chemistry, hasn’t calibrated to the natural acidity of the wine, the flavors and so on.
Natalie MacLean: So it’s a bit of a shock in a good way, and you have to almost condition your palate with that first sip and then give it a fair chance. It’s it’s also like people first impressions can be, you know, misleading. Give it a chance. Get into it.
Andrea Brambila: Exactly.
Natalie MacLean: And then you got on to memory, which is one of my favorite topics when it comes to wine aromas and flavors. They are tied to our emotional brain. And that’s why, you know, Proust, it all starts with eating the Madeleine. It’s it’s actually even not the taste of the cookie. It’s the smell of it that takes him right back to his childhood and remembrance of things past.
Andrea Brambila: I would definitely say when we’re blending as winemakers, we each talk about what we smell, and it’s amazing to hear where people go because it is. It’s totally about what you remember and what you love and what’s familiar about it.
So that’s what I love about wine, because it’s unique and any individual can get something different than what you’re tasting.
Natalie MacLean: And all taste or smell some wines. And I’m right back to the first time I tasted it years ago, and I remember where I was, who I was with, what we were eating, even what they were wearing, what I was wearing.
It’s kind of odd, but it’s such a deeply rooted emotional memory smell and and then also taste. So speaking of smell. Yeah, you know, I love that. Chloe. The word Chloe translates in Latin to blooming because I find this wine is blooming in my glass with like, beautiful aromas of golden and green apple and freshly baked bread. But I want to hear from you. How would you describe this wine? This chardonnay?
Andrea Brambila: This wine, to me is definitely the apple get kind of like a caramelly smell, which could translate into that vanilla. So I think about caramel apples, you know, and that is we’re trying to bring out the aroma of vanilla in this with captivating the apple that the grape brings to this wine. And it’s just really smooth, not too over the top because there’s some buttery shards.
Andrea Brambila: I think this gives a great mix of the fruit, plus the oak that’s used in this blend to create that harmony, and a really well balanced Chardonnay.
Natalie MacLean: It is. It’s really balanced. So it’s it’s luscious, but because it’s also grown in the cool climate of Monterey, California, that preserves its vibrancy, it’s its little natural acidity. Both have to be there for for that balance that you’re talking about. So this is just delicious. Making my mouth water even as I talk about it. So I got to try not to drool during the interview. So that could be construed as a compliment. So let’s talk about what you would pair with this wine, Andrea.
Andrea Brambila: So I mean thinking again about Chardonnay, you’re thinking about butter. You’re thinking about nutty. So salmon, a Caesar salad, anything that has a rich, buttery, nutty character, I would say pairs really well with Chardonnay.
Natalie MacLean: Absolutely. And there’s some amazing recipes on the Khloe site that I’m just going to take a moment to share right now.
Natalie MacLean: There have been some different pairings with these dishes, but I think this Chardonnay would also work. We’ve got the chicken Florentine. Let’s see. Here we go. There’s the chicken Florentine recipe. And for those who are listening on the podcast, we will put links to these recipes. But I just absolutely like this is two chicken breasts.
And for those who are listening, can’t see this delicious recipe with sea salt. And you know, they’re just got this Dijon mustard and a dry white wine. I wonder which one we would use in the recipe so you can cook and drink with the Chloe Chardonnay. We have a couple of other recipes here that I’ll just share as well for those who are able to see them, but again, we’ll put the links in.
Here’s the pappardelle pasta with wild mushrooms would be wonderful as well. That’s on your your site. And even the Zella salad with it’s a very tomato based dish would be pretty amazing. Now let’s go back to Chloe in terms of its availability. If I understand correctly, it’s now both in the Lcbo and SAQ for 1995, which is an incredible price.
Natalie MacLean – It’ll also be featured on a time limited offer in June in the SAQ and in the Lcbo in August. I also want to mention, though, that the Chloe Pinot Noir, also from Monterey County in California, will be coming out in late fall to both liquor stores. So did you want to say a quick word about the Pinot noir?
Andrea Brambila: Again, the pinot. We’re bringing it in. Cool climate area. Really wanting to pull what’s from the grape varietal itself, not try to over blend, create something simple, something delicious, something juicy.
Plum, cherry. I mean a little bit of oak. Not a ton to me. Pinot noir is simple, easy to drink red, and the climate is very important to how the grape comes in to our facility and is processed.
Natalie MacLean: Yeah, it loves a cool climate. I would say extraordinary value at 1995 and then there’ll be some limited time offer some deals on those later this year. So to wrap up, Andrea, this is wonderful. What’s your ideal setting to enjoy a glass of wine?
Andrea Brambila: I mean, it really depends on the day.
Andrea Brambila: Chloe is a brand that’s geared towards women, and when you think about it, with the bow and everything, we look at it as a treat for a woman, I mean a modern woman. We have modern women who are working, modern women who are raising families, some who are balancing both.
This is a treat to have, whether you’re sharing it with your girlfriends, sharing it with your family at a celebration, getting home from work, and just wanting to pour yourself a glass for something sweet and delicious to enjoy. That’s, I think, where you would drink. Khloe.
The celebrations and life moments. I mean, everybody’s life is different. But again, Chloe is for women and getting that treat, that taste on a maybe nightly basis for some people, if that’s what you’re looking for. I think Chloe really delivers that. It’s about treating yourself to something you really enjoy. So absolutely, that’s what goes behind this brand.
Natalie MacLean: And it’s a great value. I mean, just the taste quality ratio is pretty off the charts.
Natalie MacLean: Do you have a tip on enjoying wine that you’d like to share with our listeners and viewers?
Andrea Brambila: As I said before, I mean, I think wine should be enjoyed by everybody. And I think when you try one for the first time, if you don’t enjoy it, take a second sip, take a third sip, and then really continue to explore. There’s so many things in life that we explore daily, so many adventures we put ourselves through. And I think wine is that same adventure.
It’s just trying to find what you really enjoy and then continuing to. Once you find one, keep looking around at other wines and tasting other wines and seeing the beauty of what somebody is creating. Because that’s what we love about wine making, is seeing people pick up a bottle at a grocery store, or have a bottle at dinner.
When they’re out at a restaurant, take these bottles to celebrations with their families and friends and really enjoy it. And it makes you happy. And it makes us happy to see that people are buying it and enjoying it with friends, family, and even just for themselves.
Natalie MacLean: Absolutely. Well, congratulations on creating such a lovely wine.
Andrea Brambila: Thank you.
Natalie MacLean: Yeah, it’s been great chatting with you, Andrea. I’ll raise my glass and toast to you and and Chloe.
Andrea Brambila: Thank you.
Natalie MacLean: I look forward to the next time we can chat together.
Andrea Brambila: Thank you very much, Natalie. It was great to talk with you.
Connect with Choe Wines
Website: www.chloewinecollection.com
Facebook: Chloe Wine Collection
Instagram: @chloewine
Listen to the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast episode here.
