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Rooted in Paso: Part 2

SLO Life

We left off with your return to Peachy Canyon with a grow­ing fam­i­ly after spend­ing time abroad in Aus­tralia. Tell us about where Gib­sey came from?

My roots run deep in San Luis Obis­po Coun­ty. My grand­ma moved here from Hawaii in the 1920s and raised my dad and his sib­lings in SLO. My oth­er grand­par­ents raised nine kids in San­ta Maria and lat­er Nipo­mo. My par­ents met at Mis­sion Prep, grad­u­at­ed from Cal Poly and pur­sued teach­ing careers in Aus­tralia before mov­ing to the San Joaquin Val­ley to raise me and my sib­lings. Between sports and week­ends at our cab­in on Lake Nacimien­to, Paso Rob­les always felt like home. And with so much fam­i­ly here in the coun­ty, set­tling here was a nat­ur­al choice.

What about your ear­ly intro­duc­tions to wine? Wine was an excit­ing dis­cov­ery for me through Josh and his fam­i­ly, and I was hooked. Josh’s par­ents, Doug and Nan­cy Beck­ett, built Peachy Canyon Win­ery over decades of inspir­ing pas­sion and ded­i­ca­tion. Doug intro­duced Josh to wine when he part­nered with Pat Wheel­er at Tobias Win­ery in the ear­ly ​’80s where Écluse Win­ery is today. It was clear to me that Josh was a moth to the flame of wine in all aspects; the ener­gy of har­vest, the phys­i­cal­i­ty of wine­mak­ing, and the year-round demands of wine­grow­ing. I eas­i­ly fol­lowed and found my place in hos­pi­tal­i­ty, sales, and the cre­ative aspects of the indus­try. I start­ed with man­ag­ing the tast­ing room and pour­ing at events. Lat­er, while I was teach­ing and rais­ing our daugh­ters, I stayed involved through sales, events, and sup­port­ing the har­vest crew with dai­ly meals.

Coastal Influence and Strong Roots

So then you’re estab­lished in Paso with a young fam­i­ly. What hap­pens next?

We found our­selves miss­ing the coastal lifestyle of our col­lege days in San Diego and so we moved to Mor­ro Bay and had our sec­ond daugh­ter. We split our com­mu­ni­ty time between two towns, vol­un­teer­ing at the coastal schools and libraries while con­tribut­ing to wine indus­try events and orga­ni­za­tions in Paso. We loved our Paso friends and the vibrant wine com­mu­ni­ty, and as young pro­fes­sion­als were left feel­ing dis­con­nect­ed from wine cus­tomers and col­leagues while on the road or in the tast­ing room. We’re a sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion wine fam­i­ly, and Josh and his broth­er, Jake, cooked up a new brand to bet­ter con­nect with a broad­er audi­ence. Chron­ic Cel­lars was born from that idea, mak­ing wine approach­able, a lit­tle wild and lots of fun. We loved the free­dom that came with a new brand! Excit­ing new wine blends, new fruit sources in the far reach­es of Paso Rob­les, push­ing the enve­lope with brand­ing and hos­pi­tal­i­ty. We achieved great suc­cess and were for­tu­nate to sell Chron­ic Cel­lars in 2014 when Doug and Nan­cy were ready to retire, so we stepped back into lead­er­ship roles at Peachy Canyon with renewed enthu­si­asm and lofty goals.

Dreams And Another New Brand

About this same time, Josh and I pur­sued our dream of hav­ing a vine­yard in the Wil­low Creek Dis­trict. In 2019, we plant­ed Thibido Vine­yard, named in hon­or of Josh’s mom, Nan­cy Thi­bo­do Beck­ett. Josh was all in, metic­u­lous­ly tend­ing the land, falling in love with the chal­lenge of organ­ic farm­ing and eas­i­ly con­vinc­ing me to start our own brand to show­case this incred­i­ble vine­yard site. We launched Thibido Win­ery in 2021 with 75 cas­es of wine and a com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­i­ty, earn­ing CCOF Organ­ic Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in 2023, ensur­ing our wines are envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble and con­sumer-safe. With every vin­tage, we aim to uphold the val­ues that guide us — fam­i­ly, edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, and phil­an­thropy — con­tin­u­ing the lega­cy of those who came before us while forg­ing a path of our own.

Click here to read about Part 1; our early years