About Us

Katy Lovell, Winemaker and partner Joseph Naegele

Poetic Cellars, one of the newest wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains, is set amidst the rolling, oak-studded hills and the solitude of a country estate.  This is the perfect place to relax and enjoy fine wine in an unhurried, tranquil atmosphere.  Winemaker Katy Lovell is dedicated to creating poetry in the bottle from the finest sources she can farm and find.  Her vineyard forays take her from the Santa Cruz Mountains, where she buys Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Merlot, to the far reaches of Mendocino, where she picks beautiful old vine Carignane.  The majority of her fruit comes from her vineyards in Livermore, where she established her first winery, Rios-Lovell, nearly two decades ago.

On the back label of each bottle is a poem by her partner, Joseph L. Naegele celebrating the magical union of two creative souls who live to share their passion with wine and poetry lovers everywhere.  These two are a perfect union of passion and purpose.  Katy is a hands-on, do everything winemaker who drives the trucks, picks the grapes, runs the de-stemmer, adds the yeast, punches down, crushes, forklifts barrels, racks and tops off.  He’s an attorney and educator by day (Santa Clara University), and the poet by night: he pens the poems that grace the back labels.

We should mention that Katy also bottles, designs and prints her own labels: custom holiday labels are available for personal and corporate gift giving.  She is also an accomplished Oberlin-trained concert flutist, as well as a fabric artist, a craft she still practices when not blending, attending wine events or pouring in the tasting room.