Winemaker

Tanner Scheer

Winemaking at Red Car is led by Tanner Scheer. Tanner spent six years at Ampelos Cellars, learning on the job and eventually working his way up to Assistant Winemaker in 2011. Leaving in 2013, he joined mutual friends for harvest at Dragonette Winery in Buellton, CA before accepting a position at Liquid Farm. But Chardonnay was calling him. “Chardonnay is one of my favorite varietals and I was looking for a place that could produce Chardonnay of true character, not manipulated in any way. That boils down to soil and climate.” Tanner interviewed with Red Car in June 2015 and joined the team two weeks later.

At Red Car, Tanner adheres to simple but strict principles. “I believe in minimalism,” he explains. “Don’t manipulate the fruit in the winery. It’s up to the vineyards, the climate, the soil and the farming practices we choose to employ. What’s important for me at a fundamental level is to represent each varietal in its truest form. That’s a foundation of any of our wines.” The Red Car team is a close-knit family and Tanner especially values the camaraderie and teamwork. “We are all connected to these vineyard sites and these wines. We’ve all bought into what we are doing here, so it becomes a symbiotic relationship. The wines represent us and we represent the wines,” he says. “We rely and count on one another to come through with the parts that are on each of our plates so we can come together with a common purpose and shared vision of where we are going.”

Tanner credits his father with instilling in him how important it is to love what you do. “I’ve never seen another human who just jumped out of bed every day—2:30 in the morning even! That love and passion he has for cowboying, for me it metamorphosed to the wine industry. That type of energy, that approach to life and work. I also learned from him the importance of loyalty, respect and being accountable.” Tanner Scheer lives in Petaluma, CA with his dog, Button. Describing himself as “an avid, avid lifelong fisherman,” if Tanner isn’t working, he’s fly fishing or catching bass from his kayak.