(NAPA, Calif.) — NEWS: Domaine Carneros shares with great sadness the passing of Eileen Crane, our founding winemaker, longtime CEO, and the woman who made Domaine Carneros what it is today. Anyone who spent time with Eileen quickly understood that her gifts went well beyond the cellar. She had sharp wit and quiet conviction. She was elegant and tough in the same breath, a born optimist with endless creativity and a natural instinct for mentorship. She poured everything she had into her work, and into the people around her.
At eight years old, sitting at her family’s Sunday dinner table, she took her first sip of champagne and thought simply, “This is for me.” She never looked back. She earned a master’s degree in nutrition, trained at the Culinary Institute of America, and eventually made her way west to study enology and viticulture at UC Davis, where she was told outright by a male professor that a woman could never be a winemaker. She didn’t listen, and she kept going.
Her career reshaped American sparkling wine. After rising from tour guide to assistant winemaker at Domaine Chandon, she went on to build two prominent European sparkling wine houses in California, from the ground up, first at Gloria Ferrer, and then at Domaine Carneros, where the Taittinger and Kopf families entrusted her with launching their California sparkling wine house in 1987. Over 33 years as CEO, she led the winery with care and conviction…