TRADE & Media

While John Komes will say that hard work and a stellar team are the keys to the longtime success of Flora Springs, first-hand interaction with John hints that the secret ingredient to the winery’s achievements is his charisma. John is a laugh-out-loud kind of guy; when he smiles, his eyes dance. He teases, he jokes, he holds court in any group situation, and makes everyone in his midst feel like a member of the Flora Springs family. Yet underneath this convivial exterior is a hardworking tenacity and an enduring passion for wine.

John grew up in San Francisco in the mid-1950s, the son of Jerry Komes, president of the construction giant Bechtel Corporation. John graduated from Santa Clara University with a degree in Business Administration and followed in his father’s footsteps in business, building a thriving construction business of his own in the East Bay. His interest in wine began as a hobby in the early 1970’s when his wife Carrie sent him to a wine appreciation class as a gift. Wine soon became an obsession, and he attended more and more classes. It wasn’t long before he was making his own wine at home as a hobby.

If there’s one thing that Julie Komes Garvey has in common with her brother, John Komes, and their mother, the late Flora Komes, it’s an infectious charisma and genuine joie-de-vivre. As a proprietor of Flora Springs, Julie’s involvement in Flora Springs is no longer day-to-day, yet her contribution to the winery and to the Napa Valley community at large is both remarkable and historical.

As one of the founders of Flora Springs – along with John, Flora, their father Jerry and Julie’s husband Pat Garvey – Julie worked side by side with John and Pat in the vineyards to create the first vintages of Flora Springs. “The first harvest I was pregnant with Sean and gave birth two weeks later, so I was definitely the slowest harvester,” Julie remembers fondly. Evidently it didn’t affect the quality of the wine: Flora Springs’ inaugural Chardonnay won a gold medal (out of only three awarded that year) at the Los Angeles Country Fair.

With roots in the Friuli wine region of northern Italy, it’s no surprise that Enrico Bertoz decided to pursue a career in winemaking. But it wasn’t until his early 20s that he set his sights on California. The U.S. had been on Enrico’s radar earlier, as he had relatives who lived in New York. When he turned 24 he made the leap, packing his bags and moving to southern California to work as a winery intern in Santa Barbara. Following his mentor’s advice to explore more of California’s viticultural bounty, he moved to Napa Valley in 2005.

After working for several years at di erent Napa wineries, Enrico learned of an opening at Flora Springs. Making the move was an easy decision. “I saw that Flora Springs had its own vineyards strategically placed in some of the best appellations of Napa Valley,” he says. “I come from an Old World perspective, where the grower and the winemaker are one entity, there’s no dichotomy. That’s what attracted me.” He joined the winery in 2008.