Crane Family Vineyards (Winemaker)

Hill Family Estate (Winemaker)

LJ Crafted Wines (Winemaker)

Levendi Winery (Winemaker)

Romeo Vineyards & Cellars (Winemaker)

Alison Green-Doran is a veteran winemaker with more than 30 years of experience. She was among the first woman winemakers in California.

Raised in Palos Verdes, California, with plenty of horses and surfing, Alison was drawn into winemaking in 1973. Her father, Russell Green, was an oil man and a long-time Alexander Valley vineyard owner. He bought Simi Winery in 1969 and brought in Andre Tchellistcheff as a consultant soon thereafter.

Alison worked as a harvest intern beside Andre for six months at Simi in 1973, and that is where she found both her life’s work as well as her mentor. Andre found her a five-month “cellar rat” position in Alsace for the crush of 1975, and then an enologist position with a start-up winery in Paso Robles.

After finishing her Fermentation Science degree at the University of California, Davis, Alison began working for the Firestone Vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley in 1976. Starting as lab technician, she worked her way up to bottling supervisor and then to cellar master, and finally in 1981, to winemaker. The pioneering spirit of the Firestone Winery, its commitment to quality, and the ideal climate and soils around the vineyard, resulted in many award-winning wines during her tenure. Alison became well acquainted with how to extract maximum potential for wine quality from a vineyard site.

In 2000, Alison moved back to the family ranch and vineyards in Alexander Valley with her husband, Mark Doran, and their two sons. She works with several select clients in Napa and in Sonoma who want to approach site-specific winemaking with exuberance and intensity. These wineries include Crane Family Vineyards, Hill Family Estate, Levendi Winery, Romeo Vineyards and Cellars, Hoot Owl Creek Vineyards, and LJ Crafted Wine.

When not at the winery, Alison enjoys gardening and cooking, taking daily brisk walks and hikes in the hills, listening to opera, and serving on the Alexander Valley School Board.