Chris Carter

The Climb

Aviation discipline reads through the structure of Chris Carter's route into wine: a family of professional pilots, a habit of calibration, and an early instinct for precision. That background sits behind his work at Weatherborne Wine in Philo, but the craft itself was built the slower way, through formal study, harvest labor, a Santa Barbara County apprenticeship, and a sustained focus on Pinot Noir. Before wine became the center of his working life, Carter moved through strategy, branding, and operations at scale. He trained at University of California, Davis, Nottingham Trent University, and Dr Challoner's Grammar School, then began as an Insight Manager at 北京特恩斯市场研究咨询有限公司上海分公司 (1998–1999). He went on to Logistix Sales Promotion as Senior Planner (2001–2005), then into a long run at Red Bull: Planning Manager (2005–2008), Brand Manager (2009–2010), advertising and National Campaigns (2010–2011), head of brand (2011–2014), and General Manager (2014–2019). The sequence shows a professional shaped by systems, timing, and message control before he became identified with cellar work. Running alongside that corporate track was the more hands-on education that later defined his winemaking. He worked as a harvest intern at Cakebread in Napa and as assistant winemaker at SB County (until 2012), learning the tempo of fruit, weather, and cellar work while his broader career was moving upward elsewhere. The contrast matters: one side built around management and scale, the other around timing, judgment, and the repetitive detail of making wine. Today, Carter is Chief Operating Officer of Siam Winery (since 2019) and winemaker of Weatherborne Wine Co. (since 2012). The titles point to range, but the common ground is craft administration: making decisions, holding standards, and keeping production aligned with the work.

Today

Since 2012, Carter has been the winemaker at Weatherborne Wine in Philo, and that role marks the shift from apprenticeship into authorship. The line records a handoff between one phase of the work and the next, with the cellar becoming his main field. At Weatherborne, Pinot Noir sits at the center of the project. Carter has said as much directly: “I always loved working with Pinot Noir and knew this would be my focus.” The variety suits a maker whose background rewards precision and restraint, and his work has remained organized around that emphasis.

Signature

Chris's signature wines include Weatherborne Wine Corp. “Santa Rita Hills” Pinot Noir and Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir. Both names keep the geography close to the glass, with Santa Rita Hills and Sta. Rita Hills functioning as identifiers for place as much as for wine.

In Their Words “I always loved working with Pinot Noir and knew this would be my focus.”

Recognition

The first public marker of Carter's winemaking was tied to a bottle: Weatherborne Wine Corp. “Santa Rita Hills” Pinot Noir, from Santa Barbara County, was identified in coverage of his early work as his first Pinot. Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir was described in the same frame as his first Sta. Rita Hills Pinot. Those references place Pinot Noir and the appellation close to the start of the Weatherborne story, before the project had fully settled into its present shape.