Jenny Meadows-Smith was born in South Africa, and at the age of 15 moved to England to attend high school. She selected a school that was strong in the areas of chemistry and mathematics, two of her academic interests. Jenny went on to complete an undergraduate degree in chemistry with a minor in German at the University of Hertfordshire in 1984. She then worked as a chemist for several years (1984–1987), before moving into scientific publishing, first with Maxwell Communication Corporation and then with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), gaining an MBA during her “free time” while working.

Jenny continued working for the RSC until the birth of her fourth child. At that point, she turned her attention to another love, farming and agriculture, establishing Lower Church Farm in 1996. She raised livestock, managed a horse livery business, and grew organic fruits and vegetables there until mid-2005.

Jenny and her family moved to Connecticut in 2005. There, she raised her four children and continued with her gardening before relocating to Davis, California, in 2008. In 2013, she and her husband established Black Bicycle Farm. The property had previously been a tomato, sunflower, and corn ranch, but starting in 2014, Jenny oversaw the planting of 10 acres of wine grapevines, about 600 olive trees, a field of lavender, and assorted fruit trees instead. Her ongoing love of studying and learning, together with her strong background in science, prompted her to complete the Winemaking Certificate Program at UC Davis. UC Davis faculty members such as Anita Oberholster, a fellow South African, Andrew Waterhouse, and Mike Anderson, former manager of the UC Davis research station in Oakville, provided valuable guidance as the vineyards were developed at the farm and as Jenny made her first vintages.

She started making wine in 2015 and made her first commercial wine in 2016, opening Great Bear Vineyards in 2018. The vineyard encompasses four varieties of white grapes and eight of red grapes. Certified organic by CCOF, the grapes are grown in harmony with nature using sustainable and regenerative farming practices. Jenny crafts Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Verdot, Malbec, and Tempranillo, among other red varietals, as well as Chardonnay, Albariño, Rousanne, Sauvignon Blanc, and both red and white blends. Current production is about 2000 cases of wine annually. The wines have garnered multiple Double Gold medals at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition and have been awarded 90+ points by Wine Enthusiast Magazine, among others.

In thinking back over her journey to becoming a winemaker, Jenny says, “I started with a love of wine and the sense of community that comes from sharing a bottle, but we didn't know anything about winemaking. I had to learn the microbiology of fermentation, some biochemistry, and, obviously, the wine science—how to grow grapes, how to bottle—we had to learn all of that from scratch.” That she learned it extremely well is found in her saying that her answer to the question of how she came to love wine is that “it was intellectual.”