Ted Edwards

Coming Up

At University of California, Davis (1980), Ted Edwards took an early formal step into the discipline of winemaking, where the work is measured in seasons, fermentation, and cellar judgment. He started at Freemark Abbey in March of 1980 as Assistant Winemaker, learning inside a house whose pace and standards would define much of what came next. A period at Rutherford Hill Winery followed, where he served as Associate Winemaker until 1985, before he returned to Freemark Abbey as Lead Winemaker (1985–2020). That return set the terms for the bulk of his career: long continuity, repeated vintages, and a practice shaped by repetition as much as by change. Since 2020, Ted has been Winemaker Emeritus at Freemark Abbey, a title that marks a completed run without severing the connection to the winery.

Where They Are Now

Since 2020, Edwards has held the title of Winemaker Emeritus. His work remains connected to Freemark Abbey Winery in Rutherford and to Cabernet Sauvignon, the grape that has long anchored his imagination and his craft. There is an intimacy to the way he speaks about the work: not as a closed chapter, but as an ongoing conversation with the vineyard, the weather, and the fruit itself. “I love walking the vineyards, deciding what to pick, dancing with Mother Nature, bringing it in at the peak of ripeness.” The line carries the texture of a maker who understands that great wine begins long before the crush pad, in the measured attention of being present, reading the land, and waiting for the moment when everything aligns.

Signature

Ted's signature wines include Cabernet Bosché, Sycamore Vineyard, Partners Cabernet Sauvignon, The Partners Blend, and Ted’s Blend Red Wine. Taken together, they sketch the contours of a career grounded in Cabernet’s structure and depth, but also in nuance, partnership, and the steady hand of experience. Each name suggests a different register of the same long devotion: site, balance, blending, and the elegant discipline required to let a wine become itself. In Ted Edwards’s case, signature is not merely a list of labels; it is the accumulated expression of years spent listening closely to vineyard and vintage, and shaping that response into bottles with a distinct and enduring identity.

In Their Words “It had always been a dream and aspiration of mine to make Cabernet Sauvignon, so I could not have landed in better hands to learn the craft.” “I love walking the vineyards, deciding what to pick, dancing with Mother Nature, bringing it in at the peak of ripeness.” These two statements, set side by side, reveal the arc of his career: aspiration met by opportunity, and then refined into practiced instinct. They also capture the balance that defines the best winemaking—ambition tempered by patience, technical rigor joined to a willingness to let the vineyard lead. In Ted Edwards’s telling, the craft is never static. It is seasonal, physical, and deeply responsive, a collaboration with place that rewards attention and restraint in equal measure.