Katey Larwood is the winemaker at Damiani Wine Cellars in Finger Lakes, NY. She’s a California native, holds a BS in viticulture and enology from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and brings wide-ranging winemaking experience from California, New Zealand, Australia, Alsace, and the Finger Lakes. She first came to the region in 2015 to work at Keuka Lake Vineyards and quickly fell in love with the Finger Lakes. After honing her craft at Goldeneye in Anderson Valley, she returned east, where her energy, expertise, and passion made her a perfect fit for Damiani Wine Cellars. Media Inquiries: Miles Allen miles@damianiwinecellars.com | https://damianiwinecellars.com/
What’s the ONE THING most unique, authentic, & memorable about your brand?
What makes Damiani unique is the team dynamic—vineyard and winery staff work as one. Vineyard crews help in the cellar during harvest, and the winemaking team spends time in the vines year-round. As Winemaker, I act as the bridge, following the fruit through every season to better understand the wines it will become.
Co-Founder and Lead Viticulturalist Phil has always approached farming as “wine growing,” with quality as the priority. That philosophy runs through the entire crew: vineyard staff understand wine, and winery staff understand grapes. It’s a hands-on, collaborative process where everyone contributes, ensuring our wines are as expressive and site-driven as possible.
Describe how and what you’d do with your winemaking career or winery business if you were not constrained.
I would want to maintain the spirit of curiosity through everything. If I could, I would love to hire a bunch of experts – a team of soil, water & climate scientists, a community historian, and others – to work together to find the most precise possible planting areas, the “perfect zones” for specific varietals based on everything that makes an ideal growing site.
I’d also love to invite as many knowledgeable people from around the world as possible to drink and discuss wine, all types, and even people from the past and future if we’re really dreaming big! All to share knowledge, stories, and ideas. Also, I’d like to make wine on the moon. Or another planet.
What is the One Wine most emblematic of your brand and/or winemaking style? Tell us its story.
Chardonnay best captures our winemaking philosophy: open to change and excited by it. Each season, we adapt our viticulture to the vintage, always looking for ways to improve. For me, that flexibility—no dogma, just focus on what the fruit gives us—is at the core of how I make wine.
Chardonnay is the perfect example of this approach. It’s versatile: sparkling or still, early- or late-picked, oaked or not. In our portfolio it shows up everywhere—from Brut and Blanc de Blanc to reserve and single-vineyard bottlings. What matters most is creating wines that are distinctive and expressive, not identical year after year. The Finger Lakes naturally give us what I love to make: wines lower in alcohol, higher in acidity, with minerality and freshness that shine especially in Chardonnay. Read my review of the 2023 Reserve Chardonnay.
Bonus Question: What’s the one thing people would be surprised to learn about you?
I think at least for people who know me, it might surprise them that I’m an introverted person. I can come off as very outgoing, and much of my winemaking process is about collaboration. But I love solo time. It means I can be present with my own thoughts when I’m working in the winery. I often go home after group meetings and sit alone, puzzling through ideas and mapping everything out in my head. For me, it’s where the final touches of creative work get done.
I’m also a big fan of tubas.