Stacy Clark

The Path

Training at University of California, Davis gave Stacy Clark the framework that underpins her approach: discipline, precision, and a working command of wine science. That foundation carried into a long run as enologist at Pine Ridge Winery in Napa Valley (1983–2009), where the day-to-day work of fermentations and detail management formed the basis of a career with uncommon continuity. Those years point to the kind of cellar practice that is built gradually, through close observation and steady decision-making. In 2009, Clark became founder at Galland Clark (2009–2021), extending an already established path across more than one role in the trade. By the time she joined Charles Krug Winery in Napa Valley as winemaker from 2011–2025, she had accumulated the range that comes from moving through different parts of production over many harvests. The progression from enologist to founder to winemaker reflects breadth, but also a consistent fluency with the demands of the work.

The Work Today

Cabernet Sauvignon and Napa Bordeaux-style wines define much of Stacy Clark’s cellar identity. These are categories that reward restraint and patience, with room for judgment at every stage. Sauvignon Blanc also sits within her scope, and she has described it as a wine she has “really come to love.” That view is grounded less in sentiment than in the grape’s practical flexibility and the options it gives the winemaker. On that grape, she pointed to the variables that shape the finished wine: “There is a lot to work with here, using different yeast strains that can tease out more fruity aromatics, the timing of the picking, the temperature of fermentation—it’s a really fun project from a winemaking angle.” The remark is useful because it names the work plainly: yeast choice, picking time, and fermentation temperature are part of the set of decisions that define texture, aromatic lift, and balance. In Clark’s framing, the craft lives in those choices.

In Their Words “There is a lot to work with here, using different yeast strains that can tease out more fruity aromatics, the timing of the picking, the temperature of fermentation—it’s a really fun project from a winemaking angle.”

Acclaim

A recent public marker of her work came through Stacy Clark’s own recommendation of the Charles Krug 2017 Sauvignon Blanc, which she identified as “My wine of the week.”