Jennifer Reichardt grew up on a duck farm. Her family has raised Liberty Ducks in Sonoma County since 1901, and she still runs that operation as COO while producing wine under her Raft label. The two activities are not as unrelated as they might seem: both are about farming carefully, working with what the land and the season give you, and making something worth sharing at the table.
Backstory
Reichardt began working harvests for neighboring Sonoma vineyards in 2011, curious about what growing grapes involved. The experience led her deeper into winemaking, and she picked up additional harvests in Chile and Australia before founding Raft Wines in 2016. The name comes from the collective noun for a group of ducks on water, a nod to family legacy and to the community of farmers, friends, and customers she wanted to build around the project. She had no formal enology training, but seven or eight harvests of hands-on work proved a sufficient foundation.
The Region
Raft does not own vineyards; Reichardt sources fruit from trusted organic and biodynamic growers spread across six California counties, including El Dorado, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Madera. This approach lets her follow quality and variety rather than being constrained by what a single estate grows. The winery is based in Sonoma County, where she has deep roots through the family farm, and the wines reflect the breadth of California's climatic and geological diversity.
Vineyards and Farming
Every grape in the Raft lineup comes from certified organic farming at minimum. Reichardt works with biodynamically farmed fruit where available. She seeks out vineyard-designated sites and older vines, believing that place matters and that the farming record of a site is as important as its terroir. All picks are manual, and she prioritizes growers who share her commitment to the land over the long term.
Winemaking
Spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts is standard across the range. Reichardt adds nothing to her wines other than a small amount of sulfur at bottling when she judges it necessary. She does not fine or filter. The emphasis is on lower alcohol and higher acidity, producing wines that sit well alongside food rather than overwhelming it. Annual production runs to around 1,000 cases, keeping the operation at a scale she can manage personally.
The Wines
The Raft range centers on Rhone varieties alongside a few Italian and Spanish grapes: Counoise, Viognier, Picpoul, Sangiovese, and others sourced from interesting corners of California. The wines are priced in the twenty-to-thirty-five-dollar range, a deliberate choice to make quality natural wine accessible to people who are exploring rather than collecting. Post-pandemic, Reichardt moved to a predominantly direct-to-consumer model, which keeps her close to the people drinking the wine.
