AMBIKA SAMARTHYA-HOWARD enjoys seeing cultures and countries through a lens or their vineyards, and ideally both. After having worked at a wine bar in Harlem, in video production for Wine and Spirits Magazine, and representing Bordeaux-based Millesima as an account director at Havas Luxe, she was planning to move to Sonoma and continue her wine journey. Then she fell in love, had two kids, and now is trying to make wine on the other side of the country.

TRICIA RENSHAW went from harvest intern to assistant winemaker to eventually co-winemaker, and along the way, earned her Winemaking Certificate for Distance Learners from UC Davis because she wanted to understand the why behind winemaking practices rather than merely repeating her mentors’ methods. She consulted for a few wineries in the Finger Lakes, later taking on the role of Director of Beverage Education at the New York Wine and Culinary Center (now called The New York Kitchen), during which time she passed WSET exams for levels 1-3 and became a Certified Sommelier.  For the last few years, she has been working in the vineyard at Kemmeter to get her hands on what for her is the final, and most important, piece.  With girls grown and flown, she is in the process of fulfilling that dream dreamed so long ago; she is starting her own farm winery. To that end, she created a nursery and flower farm at her home in the city of Canandaigua as well as at a leased site at Wickham’s Tango Oaks Farm on Seneca Lake. It's there, on the shores that first called her, that she grows and sells flowers and tends two rows of Riesling for wine which--fingers crossed--will be available for sale next year.