Clayton and I met in 2013 at White Rock Vineyards. We had both just been hired by the Vandendriessche family, Clayton as Assistant Winemaker and myself as Director of Sales & Marketing. If you are familiar with White Rock, you know they march to the beat of their own drum, and hiring us was no different. Clayton had just returned from working harvest in Spain at famed Pingus, and I had just moved up to Napa from the Virgin Islands. We were ready. We worked together until 2017 when a fire ravaged the property, and burnt down Clayton’s home which was on the same road. I moved on to start my consulting business, and Clayton transitioned to Winemaker at Hudson, which he had already been working on as a custom crush project at White Rock. 

Between 2017 and 2019 Clayton’s house burned down, he built a winery from scratch with his family at their ranch in Clarksburg, he got married in Italy and threw like 3 more huge parties to celebrate, he opened the new Hudson winery in Carneros, and he and his wife Gabi got pregnant, bought a house, and had a baby. 

I’m exhausted. Somehow in all of that, he managed to still make his own brand, Alluvion Wines. And, he still managed to make them taste freaking great.