Our Winemaker
We are pleased to have Alison Green Doran as winemaker for Hill Family Estate. Her patient attitude and multitude of experience allows the best characteristics of the grapes we produce to be encapsulated in the bottle. Raised in Palos Verdes with plenty of horses and surfing, Alison was drawn into winemaking in 1973. Her father, an oil man and long time Alexander Valley vineyard owner Russell Green, had bought the Simi Winery in 1969 and brought in Andre Tchelistcheff as a consultant soon after.
By working as a harvest intern beside Andre for 6 months at Simi in 1973, Alison found both her life's work and her mentor. Andre found her a 5 month Stagaire position in Alsace for the crush of 1975 and then an enologist position with start-up Hoffman Mountain Ranch in Paso Robles.
After finishing her Fermentation Science degree at UC Davis, she began working for the Firestone Vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley in 1976. Starting as lab tech, she worked her way to bottling supervisor and then to cellar master and then in 1981, to winemaker. With the pioneering spirit of the Firestone Family, their commitment to quality and the ideal climate and soils around the vineyard, many award winning wines were made. The Firestones' generosity and balanced life style made for a special and stable platform for understanding the long term influences of vineyard management on winemaking. Alison became well acquanited with how to pull maximum potential for wine quality from a vineyard site.
Alison married Mark Doran in 1994 and now has two young sons. She left the Firestone Vineyard in 2000, moving back to the family ranch and vineyard in Alexander Valley. She now has several select clients who want to approach site specific winemaking with exuberance and intensity.