Welcome to the
Cork & Fork
If you’re in love (and in awe) with wine and wine making, you’ll really want to visit some of these tiny, loved lots of grapes and see and taste for yourself. It really is a work of art in every bottle.
The Story
You’d often find a latte in one hand and a Riedel in the other as they sniffed and swirled and guessed. Sometimes they’d get their hands mixed up and start swirling their lattes. She was hooked after that. She took every class that Cabrillo offered, some of them twice.
After the 4th year of “wine school” Cathy sold her coffee shop and began her search for a job in the wine industry. STARTING IN 2009, She volunteered at several places and her first paid winery job was at Silver Mountain Vineyards, working for Jerold O’Brien, and was part of the original team who opened the Santa Cruz tasting room.
She then worked at MJA Vineyards, a new winery in Santa Cruz, and opened their two tasting rooms, handled all the PR, Marketing, advertising, AND Events and started their Wine Club. She created events such as Wine Cellar Cinema and did all the cooking for groups up to 50. She left MJA to pursue other dreams.
For Cathy Bentley it started with one wine class at Cabrillo College in 2006. She took that first class with 3 good friends “just for fun.” That fun class turned into some serious competition for the perfect grade and they studied for hours at a time, almost daily, learning everything they could about wine. They would quiz each other on regions, grape characteristics, maps, and conduct blind wine tastings at 7am in Cathy’s coffee shop.