# Fruits of her labor: Katie Husher learned winemaking from the ground up > Source: > Published: 2026-08-16 13:47:46+00:00 **Getting your** [Trinity Audio](//trinityaudio.ai)player ready...Just three years ago, Katie Husher was writing software to control autonomous vehicles at Cruise in San Francisco. As office jobs go it wasn’t bad, but she’s an outdoorsy type and didn’t find the work fulfilling. “It wasn’t feeding my soul,” says Husher, a Los Gatos resident. She began dreaming of working in the wine industry and dropped an email to several area winemakers, hoping to get some insights. Only one of them, winemaker Nathan Kandler at Woodside’s Fogarty Winery, took the time to reply. “She was looking for a life change, and wanted to know about the industry challenges and opportunities,” says Kandler. “I gave her a real assessment of what this might look like.” He warned her it would involve a massive pay cut, and she’d also get wet cleaning out tanks. It would not be pretty. Husher was undeterred. “She came on board in the summer of 2023 and is thriving,” Kandler says. “She’s become a hugely important part of our team.” Husher embraced the challenge and it has reaped its rewards. “I love that it’s such a super lean team. I get to do so many different things in the cellar and vineyards,” she says. Giving up a well-paying job with benefits and security certainly had its risks. “My parents asked me, ‘Are you sure?’ It meant giving up a lot of tangible and intangible stuff, but they were super supportive,” says Husher. “I put a lot of thought into it.” When Kandler was promoted to general manager, he appreciated even more Husher’s take-charge attitude and willingness to tackle the day-to-day winemaking tasks he no longer had bandwidth to handle. So, he promoted her to cellar master, a position she relishes. In her new role, Husher uses her high-tech background in data management to manage quality control, including measuring wine chemistry and keeping barrels topped off. Her great palate and organizational skills make her ideally suited to winemaking, which involves a relentless application of sanitation and hygiene. It didn’t take long for her friends to notice she was a different person. “They said I got my sparkle back!” Husher says. As good as she is at cellar work, she’s also interested in the vineyard side. “Brad (assistant winemaker Brad Friedman) and I cover every vineyard together, walking all the blocks, taking petiole samples, and looking for pests and signs of mildew. We are spraying compost tea to add nutrients where vines are struggling.” “It’s great seeing her getting involved in the vineyard part of it,” says Kandler. “Learning about tractors and spraying and fertilizing is key. Here at Fogarty, we tend to start interns out in the winery, but they tend to naturally become engrossed in the various vineyards we farm. They quickly learn that wine really happens in the vineyard.” In the spring, Husher will take part in the major replant of Damiana, the original chardonnay vineyard at the Fogarty estate, as well as a replant of pinot noir in the Rapley Trail Vineyard. She’ll be part of establishing the next generation of Fogarty vines. It didn’t take Husher long to realize that not only did she love making wine, she wanted to make her own. “I came up with the idea for the Driftwood Cottage label because of my fond memories of making elaborate forts out of driftwood with my best friend at Pajaro Dunes as a little girl,” she says. “It was a reflection of what makes me happy, but it also builds on the idea that the ocean brings what it brings each year.” Her production is tiny, with only two wines on offer right now—a 2025 aligoté from Calleri Vineyard in San Benito and a 2024 sangiovese from Ascona Vineyard—but it feeds her soul and enables her to keep practicing her craft. She plans to make four or five wines max, including a gamay from Gemelli this harvest. “I have a creative outlet, and it supplements my income,” says Husher. “People with lots of money tend to buy a vineyard and hire other people to do the work. My values are to be humble and learn the craft, walking vineyards, cleaning tanks. I don’t want a tasting room or a vineyard. It’s essential to have a day job to pursue this, and how lucky I am that mine is wine.”