From Kombucha to Co-Ferment
In a Richmond production facility and now roaming the Bay Area in search of a new home, Cassidy Miller makes wine and cider that blur every boundary — grapes with apples, pears with Chenin, Valdiguié with wildfire smoke and determination. No formal background, no family legacy, just a home brewer's curiosity and a 2020 harvest that changed everything.
No Formal Experience, No Background in Wine
Cassidy Miller grew up in Riverside, California — no wine family, no vineyard childhood, no inherited cellar. She was a home brewer of kombucha, a crafts enthusiast, a photo producer by trade. Around 2018, she "started getting really into wine" and wanted to know how it was made. The curiosity of a hobbyist, not the inheritance of a legacy [^126^].
She got connected with Jason Edward Jones at Berkeley's Vinca Minor in 2019 and asked to be his harvest intern in 2020. She quit her full-time job. Started Buddy Buddy the same year. "No formal experience and no background in wine" — just determination and the willingness to learn by doing [^126^].
That first harvest was the 2020 vintage — the year wildfires devastated Northern California vineyards and smoke taint ruined grape crops across the region. Cassidy's planned harvest at Vinca Minor was scaled back dramatically. But necessity became invention: one of their Mendocino growers also farmed organic pears and gave them a box. With extra time and space in the winery, they started "kicking the idea of cider around" [^126^][^128^].
"It was all new to me so it didn't seem 'fringe' because it was all I knew," Cassidy says. What began as a fire-season experiment became the foundation of Buddy Buddy's identity: co-ferments of apples and pears with grapes, lower-alcohol frizzante beverages around 9%, and a refusal to accept that wine must contain only Vitis vinifera [^126^].
"For the four years [before I opened my own winery], I had been working as an assistant winemaker for someone else. I decided instead of making wine for someone else, I want to make it for myself and then have a different job outside of wine."
— Cassidy Miller
Mendocino Fruit, Organic & Biodynamic
Buddy Buddy sources organic or biodynamically farmed fruit, primarily from the Mendocino area — a region Cassidy came to know intimately during her years as assistant winemaker at Vinca Minor [^131^]. The relationships with growers were forged in the crucible of the 2020 fires, when shared adversity created bonds that now supply Buddy Buddy's entire program.
The fruit is hand-picked, spontaneously fermented, and handled with minimal intervention. Cassidy has since taken classes at UC Davis and found training through reading, peers, and "learning by doing" — but the core philosophy remains intuitive and experimental, rooted in the home-brewer's instinct rather than the oenologist's textbook [^126^].
Mendocino County, Northern California. Organic and biodynamic vineyards. Hand-harvested fruit. Relationships built during 2020 fire season at Vinca Minor. Growers who also farm organic pears and apples — the foundation of Buddy Buddy's hybrid identity.
Formerly Richmond, California production facility. Currently "in flux" — Cassidy recently left the Richmond space and is searching for a new Bay Area location. Native yeast fermentation, minimal sulfur, no filtration. A nomadic winery in transition.
Wine Is Becoming Cider-Like
Buddy Buddy sits at the centre of a "cultural shift where beer is becoming wine-like, kombucha is becoming beer-like and wine is becoming beer-like," as Napa winemaker Steve Matthiasson observed [^128^]. Cassidy's co-ferments of grapes with apples and pears are a radical break from tradition — but also a logical extension of her kombucha-brewing past and the experimental freedom of natural wine.
The wines are spontaneously fermented with native yeasts, made from organic fruit, and bottled with minimal sulfur [^140^]. But the defining characteristic is the blending of categories: a Chenin Blanc fermented with Asian pears and Gravenstein apples; a Valdiguié that carries the lightness of a cider; a "Crush On You" that fizzes with zesty tang, crisp finale, and a kiss of Asian pear and juicy apples [^140^].
These are not "fruit wines" in the traditional sense — sweet, heavy, novelty beverages. They are dry, complex, lower-alcohol (around 9%) sparkling frizzante drinks that challenge the segregation of fermentation categories. "Why do beer, cider and wine have to be totally distinct things? They're all fermenting beverages. It doesn't need to be segregated" [^128^].
The Zapple Juice
Buddy Buddy's most iconic creation — a cider-wine hybrid that has become a calling card for the brand. Four wines and cider/wine hybrids are tasted at every event, but the Zapple Juice is the one people remember: a fizzy, fruity, boundary-blurring drink that tastes like nothing else in California. It's the product of a winemaker who never saw the boundaries in the first place [^135^].
Woman-Owned, Photo Producer, In Flux
Cassidy Miller is 32 years old, originally from Riverside, now based in San Francisco. She runs Buddy Buddy while working as a photo producer — "a different job outside of wine" that gives her the financial stability and creative distance to keep her winemaking experimental and uncompromised [^126^].
Buddy Buddy is woman-owned and part of a growing wave of female winemakers in the East Bay and beyond. Cassidy's advice to other women entering the industry is implicit in her story: you don't need a family legacy, a degree from UC Davis, or decades of experience. You need curiosity, willingness to work harvest, and the courage to quit your job and start something [^126^].
The winery is currently "in flux" — the Richmond production facility has been left behind, and a new Bay Area location is being sought. This nomadic status is fitting for a project that has always refused to sit still: from kombucha to wine, from grapes to apples to pears, from assistant winemaker to owner, from one space to the next. Buddy Buddy is not a place. It is a method.
"A fruit wine from Buddy Buddy made with Orange Muscat and Gravenstein apples."
— San Francisco Chronicle
The Buddy Buddy Experiment
All wines and ciders are made from organic or biodynamically farmed fruit, hand-harvested, spontaneously fermented with native yeasts, and bottled with minimal sulfur. The range spans traditional natural wines, grape-apple-pear co-ferments, and lower-alcohol frizzante hybrids. No two vintages are the same — the project is too young, too experimental, and too responsive to the fires, the fruit, and the fermentations to settle into a fixed lineup [^126^][^128^][^131^].