LABORATORY STAFF
The ENOLAB is staffed with trained enologists and winemakers with a combined winemaking experience of over 50 years, with most of it in Washington State.
Mark Newton, General Manager & Consulting Winemaker, has a degree in engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara and 22 years of experience in winemaking in the State of Washington.
Tracey LaPierre, Enologist, was born and raised in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. While in college for botany, she took a winemaking course, which sparked her interest in wine.
She began working as the laboratory manager at the prestigious Heron Hill Vineyards, under winemaker Thomas Laszlo. The focus at Heron Hill was terroir driven, small-lot Riesling. Thomas was kind in taking her under his wing and expanding her horizon within the wine industry.
After six years at Heron Hill, life took her to southern California, where she spent one vintage as a consultant winemaker for Camarillo Custom Crush. At this winery, consisting of approximately 40 vintners in the LA and Malibu areas, she was introduced to warm climate winemaking. There, she produced micro-lot wines, mainly Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon varietals.
From southern California, she moved to Sonoma to work with Mark Lyon, as his laboratory manager, at Sonoma’s historic Sebastiani Vineyards. Sebastiani is a large-scale winery producing mostly small-lot, artisan wines. Spending 3 years working closely with Mark, in the fast paced lab, taught her many tricks of the trade.
She is delighted to have yet another great opportunity to work in Woodinville, with the DiStefano Winery family, maintaining the DiStefano tradition of high quality, boutique winemaking.