Steve Matthiasson

Years of Participation

Steve Matthiasson is the owner/farmer/winemaker of MATTHIASSON wines. He makes a number of different restrained and classically balanced wines from both common and uncommon varieties. Steve and his wife, Jill, started making wine in their back yard a month after they started dating. In 2003, they started MATTHIASSON when Steve happened upon an undiscovered jewel of a vineyard in the Napa Valley. Naming the winery MATTHIASSON was the easy part; the hard part was convincing people that a tiny, unknown winery could produce world-class, balanced, fresh tasting wines from the Napa Valley. Steve has been named “Winemaker of the Year” by both Food and Wine Magazine and The San Francisco Chronicle, and has been nominated four times for the James Beard Award. The wines have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle (where Steve was recently named “Winemaker of the Year”), Wine Enthusiast Magazine, Bon Appétit Magazine, In-Style Magazine, Decanter Magazine, Food & Wine Magazine, and The Wine Spectator, to name a few. The MATTHIASSON story has also been told in several wine-related books including How to Love Wine, by New York Times wine writer, Eric Asimov, The Juice, by Wall Street Journal wine writer Jay McInerney, and The New California Wine by San Francisco Chronicle wine writer Jon Bonné. Steve’s day job involves him consulting with vineyard and winery owners to improve the quality of their grapes.