Nicole Bertotti Pope matriculated at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, earning a B.S. degree in 2006, majoring in Biology with a minor in Psychology. While in school, she was a wine bar manager, which set the stage for her career in the wine industry. Nicole then moved on in 2007 to become laboratory manager/enologist at Domaine Carneros Winery, where she honed her skills at producing cool-climate Pinot Noir and sparkling wine. She was simultaneously enrolled in the Enology/Viticulture program at Napa Valley College and completed the Associate in Science degree there in 2009.

She left Domaine Carneros in 2010 and traveled to South Africa to serve as harvest assistant winemaker at Bushmanspad Estate Winery. This was followed by appointment as assistant winemaker at Talley Vineyards at Arroyo Grande in the Central Coast region of California. Nicole gained additional experience in cool-climate Pinot Noir as well as Chardonnay while at Talley.

In 2012, she was named winemaker at Stolo Family Vineyards in Cambria, where she applied her knowledge of cool-climate wines to produce accurate representations of the vineyard’s location less than three miles from the Pacific Ocean. As a consequence of its location, the vineyard thrives in blankets of morning fog and allows for dry farming of the vines, which results in more concentrated flavors in the fruit.

She and her spouse, Lucas, started a sparkling wine project, Haliotide Wines, in 2016 while they were both associated with Stolo Wines. In 2021, Nicole decided to leave her winemaking position at Stolo to focus on their joint project.

As a winemaker, Nicole’s goal is to employ different winemaking techniques and experiment with adding many unique components to the final blend, thereby imparting complexity and character to the finished wine. She was named a “Winemaker to Watch” by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2019.