Vanessa Robledo

Vanessa was born in Sonoma and raised in Napa to three generations of viticulturists. She began learning the wine business at the age of 8 while helping grow the grapes in her family’s vineyard. By the age of 12, she was translating for her Spanish-speaking father in business meetings, and soon she was running the family business, the Robledo Family Winery.

Under Vanessa’s stewardship, the Robledo Family Winery increased its wine production from only 100 cases per year in 1997 to a booming 20,000 cases a year in 2007, a performance that established Vanessa as a rising star in the world of California wine. In October of 2008, eager for new challenges, Vanessa joined Black Coyote Wines in Napa and quickly boosted its production and its prestige. Soon Black Coyote was producing 900 cases of award-winning Cabernet Sauvignon, with national distribution in 18 states and increased direct- to-consumer sales. Membership in their wine club increased 100-fold. Black Coyote’s 2007 Reserve Cabernet was awarded 97 points by Wine Enthusiast Magazine and it was selected as one of the “Top 100 Wines of the World”. Since then, every vintage of Black Coyote Reserve has earned Best of Class, Gold, or Double Gold medals from the San Francisco Chronicle’s wine critics, from Sunset Magazine’s International Wine Competition, or from the XVII Concurso Internacional. In 2011 and 2014, Black Coyote Wines were served at the White House.

A flood of accolades followed. In 2005, The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors honored Vanessa as the first district recipient of the Woman of Color Humanitarian Award. In 2006, she was awarded the Latino Business Leadership Award, given to the most influential Hispanic leaders in the Bay Area. In 2007, the North Bay Business Journal named her one of the year’s leading young professionals. In 2008, Latina Style Magazine honored Vanessa as “Latina Entrepreneur of the Year.” In 2015, Vanessa was named “Woman of the Year” by the Napa County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Marin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. And most recently North Bay Business Journal recognized her as one of the 2022 Latino Business Leadership Award recipients. 

Vanessa has shared her lifetime of wine industry expertise with other wineries, vineyards, and wine consumers around the world. She offered advice on increasing direct- to-consumer sales, wine marketing, and wine industry insider information. She has also been featured on Univision and the Food Network and has been a guest lecturer in UC Berkeley’s Wine Studies program. Vanessa is one of the protagonists in the 2019 documentary, Harvest Season. This film captures the history and contributions of the Mexican and Mexican-Americans in the wine industry. Vanessa is a board member of the Sonoma County Grape Growers Foundation which serves Sonoma County’s farmworker community by supporting leadership and providing social services for personal growth.