Waits-Mast Family Cellars was founded by Brian Mast and Jennifer Waits in 2005. Before they started to make wine, they were passionate wine consumers, spending many of their weekends exploring small wineries all over California and further afield in France, Switzerland and New Zealand. After absorbing themselves in lots of wine literature, they went from being street-smart about wines to being book-smart.
Starting around 2000, Waits and Mast continued this pursuit of knowledge by attending the Anderson Valley Pinot Noir Festival as consumers and learned more about the winemaking process during the annual festival's technical conference. That conference, along with the warm and welcoming wine community of Anderson Valley, prompted them to take their love for pinot noir to a new level. In 2005 they crafted their first barrel of Pinot Noir. Pleased with the results, they continued the following year. By 2007 they launched Waits-Mast Family Cellars as a small, yet focused commercial brand that cemented their shift from wine geeks to winemakers.
