We use cookies to optimize your experience, analyze traffic, and personalize content. To learn more, please visit our Privacy Policy.
By using our site without disabling cookies, you consent to our use of them.
our TEAM
+Brady Moran, Director of Sales & Marketing
+Greg Adams, Viticulturist and Vineyard Manager
+Heidi Brueggeman, Accounting / Hospitality
+Jesse Mackey, General Manager
+Kenny Strauss, Assistant Winemaker
+Richard & Alison Crowell, Founders
+Rick Bidia, Hospitality Manager
+Tanner Scheer, Winemaker
Brady Moran, Director of Sales & Marketing
Email: [email protected]
Tel: (707) 829-8500 x105
Brady has over 20 years of experience in the wine business, including sales, hospitality and even vineyard farming. A summer job working vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains after high school, coupled with his family planting their own small vineyard in the late 1990s, created a life-long passion for connecting to people through grapes. After college, Brady arrived in Napa Valley in 2005 and spent 9 years in hospitality and events before venturing to Oregon for a 5 year stint in the Willamette Valley. The pull from Northern California remained strong, and Brady and his family returned to Sonoma County and started the Red Car journey in the summer of 2017. Brady still manages his family vineyard in Knights Valley along with being the Director of Sales & Marketing for Red Car. When he is not doing wine stuff, Brady enjoys vegetable gardening, baking sourdough bread, and watching the San Francisco Giants. Notably, Brady was once an extra in a Michael Jackson music video and also ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain as a 20 year old.
Jesse Mackey, General Manager
Email: [email protected]
Tel: (707) 829-8500 x 102
Born in San Francisco and raised in Sonoma County, California, Jesse Mackey grew up surrounded by Northern California’s vineyards and has always enjoyed the region’s beauty and culture. “I’ve always had an interest in living in wine country,” he says, noting that he would often taste with friends and family.
Jesse graduated from Sonoma State University in 2006 with a B.S. in Business Administration. After college, he moved to San Francisco to consult in the Financial Services division of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. But after a few years of financial services and fog, Jesse was ready to get out of the city and into something more interesting to him.
Moving back to Santa Rosa in 2010, Jesse took a job in St. Helena as a CPA with wine consulting firm Brotemarkle, Davis and Co.. There, his connection with wine deepened. “It was a pretty unique situation working for this firm, we did a lot of things outside the usual accounting,” he says. “I fell in love with the agriculture component.” Certified in strategic performance management, Jesse worked closely with the firm’s winery clients. “It allowed for a greater appreciation of the wine industry,” he explains. “A lot of them were multi-generational family businesses. I saw an opportunity to help out with long-term strategy and succession planning, which was very rewarding.”
Eventually, Jesse decided he wanted to get back to Sonoma County and work for a single winery rather than consult to several. In December 2015 he joined the team at Red Car, where he has found a true philosophical alignment between his personal and professional life. “I love that we farm organically and sustainability, with minimal intervention in the winemaking process. That we are up to the challenge of running our own farming operation, not hiring that out, but controlling the entire production process from grape to bottle,” he explains. “All that we do aligns with my personal approach to what I consume. It makes it very easy for me to stand behind the product itself and believe in it. I need that to be inspired, it doesn’t feel like a job.”
Jesse also appreciates Red Car’s company culture. “We are very cohesive, with great camaraderie,” he says. “Everybody’s tuned in to not only what they’re working on but also to every other department within the organization. There’s a deep sense of connectedness and a team-oriented philosophy here.”
Jesse Mackey lives in Santa Rosa, CA. When he isn’t at the winery, you’ll usually find him on two wheels: “I spend most of my time mountain biking or gravel riding. Mountain biking is a real passion.”
Tanner Scheer, Winemaker
Email: [email protected]
Tel: (707) 829-8500
Winemaking was an unexpected career choice for Tanner Scheer, but turned out to be a surprising fit. In 2008, Tanner was looking for a means of getting to California to be closer to his brother and sister-in- law, who happened to be longtime friends of Ampelos Cellars owners Peter and Rebecca Work. After a quick telephone interview, Tanner had a job lined up as a cellar rat and a place to stay: an RV parked on the Ampelos property. Quitting his job in Colorado, Tanner hit the road, arriving in Lompoc, CA at 18 years of age with all he had—two bags and a backpack—to work his first harvest.
Tanner had never tasted a single wine at that point. “The first wine I had was 2001 Melville Pinot,” he says. “I remember thinking that this is the craziest thing ever, that all this action can be packed in one glass.” He fell in love with the work, too, having grown up in southwest Colorado on large horse and cattle ranches alongside his father, a hardworking career cowboy. “It fit my work ethic and the way I was raised. I felt like I was willing to work harder than anybody. I’d start an hour earlier and stay hours later than anybody else.”
The hard work and extra hours paid off. Tanner spent six years at Ampelos Cellars, learning on the job and eventually working his way up to Assistant Winemaker in 2011. Leaving in 2013, he joined mutual friends for harvest at Dragonette Winery in Buellton, CA before accepting a position at Liquid Farm. But Chardonnay was calling him. “Chardonnay is one of my favorite varietals and I was looking for a place that could produce Chardonnay of true character, not manipulated in any way. That boils down to soil and climate.” Tanner interviewed with Red Car in June 2015 and joined the team two weeks later.
At Red Car, Tanner adheres to simple but strict principles. “I believe in minimalism,” he explains. “Don’t manipulate the fruit in the winery. It’s up to the vineyards, the climate, the soil and the farming practices we choose to employ. What’s important for me at a fundamental level is to represent each varietal in its truest form. That’s a foundation of any of our wines.”
The Red Car team is a close-knit family and Tanner especially values the camaraderie and teamwork. “We are all connected to these vineyard sites and these wines. We’ve all bought into what we are doing here, so it becomes a symbiotic relationship. The wines represent us and we represent the wines,” he says. “We rely and count on one another to come through with the parts that are on each of our plates so we can come together with a common purpose and shared vision of where we are going.”
Tanner credits his father with instilling in him how important it is to love what you do. “I’ve never seen another human who just jumped out of bed every day—2:30 in the morning even! That love and passion he has for cowboying, for me it metamorphosed to the wine industry. That type of energy, that approach to life and work. I also learned from him the importance of loyalty, respect and being accountable.”
Tanner Scheer lives in Petaluma, CA with his dog, Button. Describing himself as “an avid, avid lifelong fisherman,” if Tanner isn’t working, he’s fly fishing or catching bass from his kayak. Favorite spots include Lake Sonoma, Lake Chabot, and New Melones Lake near Angel’s Camp.