Winemaking feels like somewhat of an innate practice for Marc Piro, the 30-year-old vintner who’s worked at Au Bon Climat and Qupé since 2012 but will be debuting his first self-made pinot noir to a Santa Barbara crowd this weekend.
Growing up in San Rafael, Piro loved to play amid the wine collection of his father. “It was my childhood fort,” Piro explained. “I’d go into the cellar and eat Fruit by the Foot.” He got into cooking early on and “learned how to waft in the 5th grade,” said Piro, whose mom would crack jokes about his smelling hobby.
He studied business at the University of San Diego (USD), where he started home-brewing and visiting breweries like Ballast Point, just three blocks down the street. After visiting his Bali-based brother for six months, he figured he’d return to Cali and be a brewer. But his USD friend, Andrew Mariani, who now runs Scribe Winery in Sonoma, suggested Piro work a grape harvest in the southern hemisphere instead.