Clarissa Nagy grew up trying to trade her preservative-free cheese and roast beef sandwiches and her all-natural fruit leather for other kids’ white bread and bologna sandwiches. Little did she know: Some day, it would have her making fine wine.
As she got older, her mother’s eclectic, nutritious influence stuck with her. After graduating from Cal Poly, Nagy had her sights on Nabisco, intending to develop preservative-free food for them. However, Nagy was passed over because another applicant lived closer to New Jersey, so she stayed on the Central Coast and went to work for Byron Wines.
One day, while on top of a barrel she was filling with fresh wine, she said she realized, “I could do this.”
Now, she does all of it—she drives a forklift to load grape presses, fills the barrels so her wines can age, and does all the marketing and promotion. And after a decade of making Nagy Wines, she’s opening a tasting room in Orcutt. She will be taking over the space that was formerly Core’s tasting room.
Nagy started making her own wine in 2004, producing a humble 100 cases, taking up half a row of space at Central Coast Wine Services in Santa Maria, which provides facilities and services to winemakers. Her little winery has grown, and this year she is proud of the two rows she takes up and the 600 cases Nagy Wines produces. It’s far short of the 6,000 to 10,000 cases that her neighbors are producing, but Nagy said she’s just happy to be doing it.
“It is a risk,” Nagy said about jumping into the wine business, with massive loans, tons of grapes, and a dream of selling thousands of cases. “It’s three years before you see any profit.”
She said the most important thing about running the business is remaining flexible, adding that trying to set too stringent a schedule can be a liability. The plan for her day can easily be thrown off if a tank happens to be too hot and she has to wait for it to cool. There are days during harvest season when Nagy is stuck at Central Coast Wine Services for 10 to 12 hours at a time.
The tasting room is slated to open Oct. 29. Nagy is teaming up with Alexandra Thompson of Heart and Sugar for holiday wine and desert events. Also planned is a section of the tasting room that features local artists on either a monthly or seasonal basis. Core’s old tasting room turned out to be the perfect spot for Nagy to show off her wines.
“I’d looked at other spaces, but 1,000 and 1,200 square feet was too big for me. Core was moving. It worked out great,” she said.
The road to the tasting room was an unexpected one. At first, it started out with one visitor a month wanting to visit the winery that was smack in the middle of the industrial complex. Nagy said eventually that number grew to two, then three, then four a month.
“I figured I’d better do something if people were willing to come visit me here,” she said.
Staff Writer Michael McCone wrote this week’s Biz Spotlight. Information should be sent to the Sun via fax, email, or mail.
This article appears in Oct 16-23, 2014.