This feature is part of our 2023 Next Wave Awards.
Enthusiasts are often drawn to wine for its ability to be much more than just a bottle of boozy liquid — a thoughtfully crafted wine can often represent a specific time, place, or person. That’s exactly what winemaker Andrew Jones strives to capture with Field Recordings, which he considers a personal catalog of the people and places he values most.
A small winery with an annual production of about 40,000 cases, Field Recordings crafts both single-variety wines and unique blends, with the goal of showcasing interesting and historical California vineyard sites.
Credit: Ruby Wallau
But the path to the winery’s inaugural vintage wasn’t so obvious. Jones fell into wine when he was in college on a football scholarship. While he was focused on athletics, he randomly selected agricultural business as his major and started taking classes on vines and vineyard management. After school, Jones took a job at a grapevine nursery, and worked on vineyard development and care across California’s Central Coast. This experience exposed him to distinct vineyards as well as the interesting people behind each of them. Jones was taken with the diversity of growing sites and grapes that heavily contrasted the monotony of Cabs that dominated the market.
Based in Paso Robles, Calif., Field Recordings was started as a small side project in 2007, with the goal of sharing the magic of the vineyards and small growers Jones discovered while driving across California. “So much stuff in
