Sarah Goedhart is the winemaker for Hedges Family Estate in Red Mountain AVA, Washington State. was born in Buenos Aires and raised around the world before her family settled in Seattle in 1986 to start Hedges Cellars. She spent summers working in the Red Mountain vineyard and later at the winery. After earning a business and philosophy degree from the University of San Diego, she gained hands-on experience at wineries in Provence, Santa Barbara, and Sonoma, while also studying chemistry and enology.
In 2006, Sarah joined the family winery full-time as Assistant Winemaker and completed her enology certificate at Washington State University. She launched the Goedhart Family label with her husband and became head winemaker and director of winery operations in 2015. She lives in Richland with her family and balances her career with a love of nature, creativity, and staying grounded in what matters most. Media Inquiries: Sarah@hedgesfamilyestate.com | https://hedgesfamilyestate.com/
What’s the ONE THING most unique, authentic, & memorable about your brand?
We are a vertically integrated estate grown and bottled winery. We do everything from growing our grapes, processing, bottling, and have a tasting room all on our property. We not only control everything on-site, we are also the only certified Organic and Biodynamic property in the Red Mountain AVA. We care about the land we farm, keeping the soil and plants healthy and also providing a safe environment for our employees and guests. This care comes through in the quality of the winemaking. We make minimal intervention, low sulfur wines that reflect a sense of place, not a list of ingredients crafted together. We don’t add any of the many extras that you can find in factory wines. Our wines are a clean, true, agricultural products. Our land, our wines, our property, offer a reprise from life, a journey to another time and place. A time and place when wine was a product of agriculture, not a product of science.
Describe how and what you’d do with your winemaking career or winery business if you were not constrained.
If unconstrained, I would use every resource I had to bring a wine culture to the younger generations. More staff to showcase meals, time around a table, phone free banter, Sunday afternoons with community, get people excited about wine, educate them about what a true agricultural wine is vs a factory wine (and fight for truth in labeling with wine). Help them seek out wines with meaning, host trips to the old country, show them what the history of wine is and how interconnected wine is to so many moments. Wine is a smaller part of the bigger thing that humans need more of. More authentic connection, more community, more getting back to the land, eating and drinking things that take time to produce, that make you feel good and nourish you. Showing that “quick” culture is fleeting and it’s the slower things in life that fill you up. We may think we are a more advanced civilization, but we have lost so much connection and purpose. Wine and community can be a big part in helping us get back to that.
What is the One Wine most emblematic of your brand and/or winemaking style? Tell us its story.
Our La Haute Cuvee is the wine that defined our commitment to taking care of the land, our employees, and customers. After our land was certified Organic and Biodynamic, we went that direction with winemaking as well. We stopped “making” wine and started guiding the grapes along through native fermentations and minimal inputs. We let the land speak for itself and took the ego out of it. This wine is what kicked it all off and showed us what our land was capable of if we just paid attention and listened. Now we produce everything in our portfolio this way, sharing wines that reflect a place not a brand or a person. I loved this cuvée. Read my notes here.
Bonus Question: What’s the one thing people would be surprised to learn about you?
I am naturally an introvert and very quiet. I enjoy listening much more than talking, which people would never guess if they’ve met me at the winery or on the road. It’s challenging for me to do the PR side of the business, but necessary, and even after 20+ years in the industry I still find it difficult to be in front of crowds and tap into what little outgoing energy I have! I really enjoy meeting people, but prefer when they do most of the talking, I find listening much more fulfilling.