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Rooted in Paso: The Origins of Thibido Winery

First Encounters

How did you meet? Josh and I met in my third year at the Uni­ver­si­ty of San Diego. We were both vol­un­teer­ing with the USD Ori­en­ta­tion Team, a com­mit­tee host­ing the week of fes­tiv­i­ties to wel­come and con­nect incom­ing fresh­men at our col­lege. It was a sum­mer in San Diego when every­thing clicked and the minute our paths crossed we were inseparable. 

What was your first date? One of our first dates Josh brought over a bot­tle of Peachy Canyon Zin­fan­del along with his fam­i­ly sto­ry while we cooked din­ner togeth­er. We had a lot in com­mon and shared our small com­mu­ni­ty upbring­ing, love of fam­i­ly, an appre­ci­a­tion for the out­doors and a sense of adven­ture. When Josh grad­u­at­ed in ​‘98 he returned to his roots at Peachy Canyon Win­ery to help imple­ment a Point of Sale Sys­tem at the tast­ing room and stayed on to work ​“one har­vest”. Even­tu­al­ly I fol­lowed him to Paso Rob­les and nev­er real­ly looked back. 

Curiosity & Growth

What hap­pened next? Wine became the steady heart­beat of our lives in Paso Rob­les. In my ear­ly years in Paso, Josh shared his love for vine­yard life and the his­to­ry of his fam­i­ly in wine with me. I fold­ed into the fam­i­ly busi­ness and man­aged the tast­ing room before secur­ing a teach­ing posi­tion of my own while con­tin­u­ing my involve­ment with the win­ery through events and sales on the week­ends. The Peachy Canyon Win­ery was fast grow­ing in the ear­ly 2000s and moved pro­duc­tion to a larg­er facil­i­ty. Josh poured him­self into improv­ing and expand­ing this new (old) facil­i­ty, clean­ing out and clean­ing up, replant­i­ng vine­yards while work­ing under the tute­lage of sev­er­al wine­mak­ers who men­tored him in grow­ing and mak­ing wine. We immersed our­selves in the local wine com­mu­ni­ty, forg­ing friend­ships with fel­low pio­neers and embrac­ing every har­vest, sales trip, and late-night gathering.

New Gifts

What else inter­ests you guys besides wine? Beyond wine, we chased our pas­sions — Josh surf­ing when­ev­er and wher­ev­er he could, and me log­ging miles for marathons and triathlons. But rest­less­ness led us to Mar­garet Riv­er, Aus­tralia, where Josh took on a cor­po­rate-scale har­vest at Cape Mentelle while I shad­owed the win­ery chef and we soaked up the sim­i­lar­i­ties between Paso and ​“Marg’s”. That adven­ture gift­ed us more than expe­ri­ence — it’s where we learned we were preg­nant with our first child.

Family First

Home from Aus­tralia with a new baby! How was your re-entry to Paso? I remem­ber it was real­ly hot! But, seri­ous­ly, we returned to Paso with a fresh per­spec­tive, we reded­i­cat­ed our­selves to our wine com­mu­ni­ty and the fam­i­ly busi­ness. Josh stepped into wine­mak­ing lead­er­ship at Peachy Canyon, shap­ing its cul­ture, while I focused on hos­pi­tal­i­ty, men­tored by my moth­er-in-law, and helped to cre­ate ele­vat­ed expe­ri­ences for cus­tomers. These ear­ly years instilled in us the val­ues we now car­ry into Thibido Win­ery — com­mu­ni­ty, stew­ard­ship, curios­i­ty, and above all, the joy of shar­ing great wine.

Stay tuned for more chap­ters of our past in the next newsletter.