Barbour Vineyards (Winemaker)

Scarecrow Wine (Winemaker)

Stalwørth (Winemaker)

Sylvan Lake Vineyards (Winemaker)

Celia Welch has been a winemaker for more than 30 years, after earning a B.S. degree in Fermentation Science from the University of California, Davis in 1982. Joining her in classes at that time were Kristin Belair, Pam Starr, and Stacy Clark, who are now colleagues as winemakers in California.

Her first interaction with grapes was under the huge oak tree in her backyard in Southern Oregon, where she and her siblings picked grape berries from stems for their father, an avid wine collector and home winemaker. Her parents also included the children on trips through Napa and Sonoma in the early 1960s, and, like most visitors, she was entranced with the beauty of the rolling vineyards.

She enrolled at UC Davis when she learned that professional winemaking would combine her early fascination with flavors and aromas, her strengths in science, and her love of the rural lifestyle. There, one of her significant mentors was Professor Ann Noble, inventor of the Wine Aroma Wheel. After receiving her degree, Celia traveled to the wine regions of the Pacific Northwest, the East Coast, and New Zealand. She worked the harvest in the Barossa Valley of Australia and then she settled in the Napa Valley to refine her craft.

She then spent several years assisting in wine production on Mt. Veeder and in the Carneros. She joined Silverado Vineyards in 1987 to design, implement, and supervise a quality control program. In 1991, she became the assistant winemaker at Robert Pepi winery and in 1992 began consulting for Staglin Family Vineyard, a small, ultra-premium Cabernet Sauvignon producer.

She had reached a fork in her career path in the early 1990s, and that’s when she chose to focus on independent wine consulting. She resigned from Robert Pepi in 1995 to pursue her consulting career, and she has acted as an independent winemaker and winemaking consultant since that time. The wines she made subsequently are a microcosm of Napa Valley; they are from vineyards on Mt. Veeder, Atlas Peak, Howell Mountain, Carneros, St. Helena, and Napa. She currently is the winemaker for a number of wineries in the Napa Valley and is the consulting winemaker for Signorello Estate, Hess-Persson Estates, and J. Davies Winery. A measure of her winemaking talent is in the form of her 2015 Scarecrow Cabernet Sauvignon receiving the highest rating on Vivino in 2019.

Celia also founded her own brand, Corra Wines in 2004. It was only after she started her own label that Celia realized the last step of the cycle of winemaking – the moment of celebration when the cork is pulled from the bottle. She says that Corra was her chance to complete the story. She closed Corra when she transitioned to being the winemaker for Sylvan Lake Vineyards.

Celia has been honored as Winemaker of the Year 2008 by Food & Wine Magazine, as one of Forbes.com’s “Top Ten Tastemakers of 2006," and with the Women for Winesense Rising Star Award from the Southern California chapter of this group; the national chapter of Women for Winesense inducted her into its Winemaker’s Hall of Fame as well.

Celia has two children and resides in Napa Valley.