Wine from the Culture of Patience

Martha Stoumen did not grow up in wine. A native of Sebastopol, Sonoma County, she studied Geography and Environmental Studies at UCLA with a minor in Italian — a combination that would prove prophetic. [^51^] Her undergraduate focus on traditional agricultural systems, combined with her love of Italy, led her to Tenuta di Spannocchia in Siena in 2006, where she worked in the vineyard, olive orchard, and winery of a small farm and learning center. [^51^] Most of her time was spent in the vineyard rather than the cellar — unlike the typical modern California winemaker who spends relatively little time among the vines. [^51^] She entered winemaking as a viticulturist, a vigneron, and that vineyard-first perspective has defined everything she does.

What followed was an extraordinary eight-year apprenticeship across six countries. In 2007–2008, she worked at Chalk Hill Winery in Sonoma, then at Cape Mentelle in Australia's Margaret River (2009), Heymann-Löwenstein in Germany's Mosel Valley (2009), Boisset Family Estates (2011), and Azienda Agricola COS in Sicily — the revered natural winery that would become her most formative experience. [^51^] [^55^] She returned to COS for two years as brand ambassador after a 2013 internship at Domaine Léon Barral in Faugères, France. [^51^] She also spent ten months as assistant winemaker at Seresin in New Zealand. [^51^]

Back in California, Martha enrolled at UC Davis for her master's in Viticulture and Enology, graduating in 2013. [^51^] It was there, around 2010, that friend and classmate Junichi Fujita shared two wines from Sicily — one from COS, one from Frank Cornelissen — and the term "natural wine" entered her vocabulary. [^50^] Enamored by COS, she made her way to Sicily after graduation, and the rest is history.

Upon returning to California, Martha worked as assistant winemaker at Chris Brockway's pioneering Broc Cellars in Berkeley — one of the earliest and most respected natural wine labels in the state. [^50^] [^51^] In 2014, she launched Martha Stoumen Wines, first working out of a shared facility in Richmond, then moving to Pax Winery in Sebastopol's Barlow — where she remains to this day, surrounded by a rotating cast of collaborative natural winemakers. [^50^]

The early years were bootstrapped. Martha teamed up with UC Davis classmates to form the Living Wines Collective — a group that cared for abandoned vineyards and made wine out of a parent's garage. [^49^] When the collective disbanded, she founded her eponymous label and grew slowly, debt-averse after student loans, with three minority partners who collectively owned less than 18% of the business. [^49^] In 2024, she joined the Overshine Collective — alongside Reeve, Idlewild, Comunitá, and Overshine — enabling her long-held dream of opening a tasting room in downtown Healdsburg, which opened in October 2025. [^49^]

Martha's winemaking is low-intervention but not dogmatic. She is not opposed to sulfur — she simply uses as little as possible. She is not opposed to technology — she simply believes the best wine comes from healthy vineyards and patient cellars. Her goal is to make wines that are multidimensional: they may have some tannin, but also acidity and a freshness that can go throughout the year with a wide range of foods. [^55^]

The wines are made at Pax Winery in Sebastopol — a shared facility that hums with a ballet of fruit deliveries and fermentations each harvest season, home to a rotating cast of natural winemakers. [^50^] This collaborative environment suits Martha perfectly. "People here are open minded and environmentally minded," she says. "There are more opportunities to collaborate that come our way than we can handle." [^50^]

Her labels — designed by Oakland-based artist Carolynn Haydu — are eye-catching, colorful, and cartoonish, reflecting the irreverent, joyful spirit of the wines inside. [^49^] [^55^] The "Post-Flirtation" series is a pun on "post-filtration" — a wink to natural wine's unfined, unfiltered ethos. [^49^] The branding has won her a devoted following among younger wine drinkers who appreciate both the aesthetics and the authenticity.

Martha is also an advocate for women winemakers and a frequent collaborator outside the wine space — including a wine-beer hybrid with Chicago's Middle Brow, and experiments with turning sideways fermentations into low-ABV hard seltzer. [^55^] She is part of an ongoing online forum for women winemakers and is actively working to lower barriers to entry for women, people of color, and others underrepresented in the industry. [^55^]

In 2024, Martha gave birth to her son, August — an event that led her to reevaluate her priorities and eventually join the Overshine Collective, a pooled-resources enterprise that allows her to focus on the creative parts of winemaking while sharing accounting, logistics, and infrastructure with like-minded brands. [^49^] The collective funded her long-held dream: a tasting room at 325 Center St. in downtown Healdsburg, designed by Margaret Ruiz (Bar Gemini, San Francisco), with redwood shelving, copper backsplashes, and a light, desert-rose palette. [^49^]