Mike Duffy born in Salem, Oregon and
raised in Redding, CA, Mike seemed
destined early in to pursue a career in
the wine business. As a youth his dad
was an avid home-winemaker, Mike was
fascinated by the process and would
often times help his dad. When Mike was
a sophomore in High school, he had
already declared his intention to major
in enology at UC Davis.
In 1980, during his last year at Davis,
he landed an opportunity to intern at
Trefethen Winery, where he had worked
briefly during a crush one year. He was
soon offered a job as Assistant
Winemaker, so he decided to accelerate
his schooling by jamming his entire last
year into just 2 quarters.
In 1983 Mike moved over to Sonoma County
to pursue is own dream of one day owning
a winery. He took a job at Field Stone
as the winemaker working along side with
the Anfre' Tchelistcheff, a world
renowned winemaker, for nine years while
crafting his Cabernet for his Optima
label. In 1984, Mike purchased grapes of
his own, leading to his first production
of 400 cases of Cabernet.
Today, Mike along with his wife Nicol
and four boys celebrate Optima Winery's
twentieth year, while continuing the
tradition of producing premium world
class wines.
Nicol was born and raised in Santa Rosa,
CA had also always dreamed of being in
the wine business. After attending
college with an accounting degree she
tried to break into the wine business.
She soon came to realize that most
wineries were family run. So she focused
on Public Accounting for eight years
until 2000.
Nicol and her son Tyler moved to
Healdsburg where her son tried out for a
traveling soccer team. Mike was the
coach. Mike picked Tyler and so the
three of them traveled quite a bit. One
night she invited Mike to dinner and
pulled out a bottle of Optima Russian
River Chardonnay.
Mike explained to her that, that was his
winery and he made that wine. Well she
knew she had to marry him so in 2001
Mike and Nicol and the four boys married
at a winery in Healdsburg.