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Napa Wine Company: California Bonded Winery #9

Steeped in history, generations of grape growers and winemakers have crafted wines since 1877 at the facility now owned by Napa Wine Company.

Location certainly plays a part. The winery is ideally situated in Oakville, the near geographic center of Napa Valley, and right on Highway 29, the main north-south route. The custom crush facility is also "home" to many of Napa Valley's leading winemakers.

But history is crafted by people, and the grape growers and winemakers associated with Napa Wine Company help tell the history of Napa Valley itself.

Andrew Hoxsey, Managing Partner

Andrew Hoxsey, managing partner, is a fourth generation grape grower who spent the summers of his youth hauling grapes from his grandfather's Yountville vineyards to Napa Valley wineries.

Through the dust and dirt, lean times and good times, Hoxsey learned the wine industry literally from the ground up. His philosophical bent toward wine growing, as opposed to grape growing, reflects this intimate relationship between the quality of farming and the quality in the bottle. No doubt this approach was established early in life, echoing the sentiments of his grandfather, Andrew Pelissa, who farmed organically decades before the concept became fashionable.

After his 1978 graduation from the University of California, Davis with a degree in Agricultural Economics/Business Management, Hoxsey pursued a long-standing passion for flying by working for Bank of America's Air Courier Division.

In 1984, at his grandfather's suggestion, Hoxsey returned full-time to the family business, which led to the acquisition of the Napa Wine Co. in 1993. With the purchase of the ninth bonded winery in the state, the Pelissa Family now had a place to make its own wines.

Hoxsey, his family and team of winemakers and winegrowers have built the Napa Wine Co. into not only the leading custom crush facility in the Napa Valley, but also an emerging wine brand, whose brand name and logo honor the company's history.

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Sheldon Parker, General Manager

Sheldon has had a life long involvement with grapes. Beginning with working in the family owned vineyards in Madera, CA growing grapes to make raisins for Sun-Maid. He entered into the wine industry in 1979 in bottling maintenance working for Heublein Wines. In 1983, he moved to Napa as the Bottling Maintenance Foreman for Inglenook. Monticello Cellars was his next stop as Production Manager where he assisted the winemaker in all phases of production and was the winery representative for bottling and custom winemaking.

Sheldon has been with Napa Wine Company since 1994. He started his career with us by creating and implementing our custom bottling services, taking production from the beginning to over 1 million cases each year.

In 2001 Sheldon became General Manager; overseeing the production of more than 60 wineries.  His responsibilities include the day-to day operations, contract negotiations and harvest scheduling for Napa Wine Company. He has also instructed at Napa Valley College in Viticulture and Winery Technology, teaching Winery Development and Management.

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Kristi Koford, Production Winemaker

Born in Berkeley and raised primarily outside the US as her father traveled the world studying wild animal behavior, Kristi Koford’s intention when studying biology at UC Santa Cruz was to follow in her father’s footsteps.  Instead, she found herself attempting to grow wild mushrooms on a farm in Lodi.  When not mushrooming, she worked in the vineyard, pruning, picking, driving farm machinery and making wine.  This led to her first real job in the wine industry as a microbiologist for Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville.  Under the tutelage of Zelma Long and the “University of Mondavi,” she became Senior Enologist, directing the work in the cellar and laboratory.  After ten years, she took four years off and, with her husband, built a hand made timber frame house in the Oakville hills.  She returned to wine work as Assistant Winemaker when St Supery Winery opened in 1988 then as Winemaker at Alderbrook Winery in 1997.  She joined the staff of Napa Wine Company in 2001 as Production Winemaker.

“Napa Wine Company’s unique mission and client base gives me the opportunity to exercise my technical knowledge and resource management skills in a mutually beneficial and fulfilling way.  I am also using my early multicultural experiences and behavioral studies in ways I never envisioned.  Life, like wine, proceeds in mysterious ways.” 

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“Napa Wine Company is like one big house with one big winemaking family – it has always amazed me that with so many producers production always goes off without a hitch, and we all have a good time.”
Michael Pozzan – Michael Pozzan Winery