Feb. 21, 2025 – The Institute of Masters of Wine was founded in 1955 in the United Kingdom by the six Masters of Wine (MW) who passed the rigorous, inaugural exam two years before. Seventy years later, there are 421 Masters of Wine across 30 countries. Amy Christine, co-owner of the Holus-Bolus and The Joy Fantastic labels with her husband, Peter Hunken, in Los Olivos, California, is one of those elite professionals. But a career in wine was the furthest thing from her mind after graduating from Vanderbilt University with a plan to become an actress. Moving to Los Angeles in 2001, as many aspiring actors do to pay the bills, she took a job as a sommelier. “I’m a bit of a nerd. While I’m doing this acting thing maybe I’ll also study to become a Master of Wine,” Amy said to Chaîne during a Feb. 6 telephone interview.

Amy learned about MW certification while working as a daytime bartender at a fine dining restaurant in Michigan after graduating from Vanderbilt. It was a side gig to her nighttime job acting in a play at Jeff Daniels’ Purple Rose Theater in downtown Chelsea. Commuting between her home, the restaurant and the theater in three different cities, Amy focused on creating an impressive resume for her goal to one day star in her own Hollywood sitcom.

The restaurant’s sommelier suggested she read a few books to introduce her to wine. She was definitely starting from scratch. Growing up in Georgia in a family that did not drink wine, she had no base level knowledge of the ancient beverage. “My family is not a wine family. We’re country people. My mom drinks lite beer and amaretto and coke. I somehow went off on this high brow, snooty life style. It’s very, very different from how I grew up,” Amy said. To her dismay, except for one cousin, her family still doesn’t drink wine. “It’s kind of a bummer. My husband and I have been making wine for 20 years. I would really like to share that with them. But it’s fine.”

The sommelier at the Michigan restaurant recommended she read The Oxford Companion to Wine, edited by Jancis Robinson, and Kevin Zraly’s Windows on the World, among others. “I would just sit behind the bar and read these books,” she said. As a result, she became aware of the Master of Wine certification and so enrolled in the first level wine course offered by The Court of Master Sommeliers.

In fall 2001, she was ready to take the theatrical leap to Hollywood. Securing a job as a floor sommelier at the highly acclaimed A.O.C. Wine Bar to support herself, she had time to go to auditions and then added a second job selling wine during the day to make ends meet.

Holus-Bolus Label

In 2004, she met Peter Hunken, then the assistant winemaker at Stolpman Vineyards in Los Olivos. With love and buds blooming, within one year they began making wine under their own Holus-Bolus label with grapes they purchased from other growers. Stolpman offered them use of their space and equipment at no cost. “I feel really grateful for Stolpman because they gave us the opportunity to save some money and sell some wine before we had to pay rent. Without them, we would not be here,” Amy said.

Amy left A.O.C. and went to work full time for Veritas Imports, a California company specializing in importing wine from Burgundy and Bordeaux. Now immersed in the wine industry and her own barrels of juice fermenting and aging at Stolpman, she harkened back to her days reading wine books behind the bar in Michigan. In 2006, she decided it was time to go for the brass ring of MW certification.

Master of Wine Certification

“I applied blindly. I had no idea it was going to take over my life completely. I thought it would just be something fun to do. Fun is not the word I would use to describe it in the end,” she wryly yet affectionately said.

When Amy applied to sit for the tests, she did not have completed coursework from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET), which is a requirement today. In addition, Amy said in 2006, there were not as many people applying. “It wasn’t well known the way it was in England. It wasn’t very popular in America.”

There are three facets to MW certification: theoretical knowledge, practical knowledge and a research paper, called a dissertation when Amy sat for the tests. Now it’s called a research paper. There are no shortcuts with a minimum of three years required to earn certification. Amy’s journey lasted seven years.

Amy sat for the tests at Opus One Winery, founded in 1980 in Napa through the partnership of Baron Philippe de Rothschild and Robert Mondavi. She passed the theoretical portion on her first try in 2009 but did not pass the practical blind tastings, 36 wines over three days. “It’s a beast. There is between an eight percent and 15 percent pass rate,” she said.

The third time was the charm for her so in 2011, she proceeded to the third and final stage. She spent the next two years researching and writing her dissertation: “The Decline of Varietally Labeled U.S. Syrah: A Comparative Approach for Determining the Perceptions and Preferences of American Consumers for U.S. Syrah.”

Amy summarizes her research as follows:

“Essentially, why was the wholesale market (retail and restaurant buyers) telling me that consumers were not buying Syrah? When I surveyed these buyers their response was that consumers did not like Syrah and/or there were too many different styles of Syrah being produced and consumers were confused. It turned out that they were wrong. After two years of work and $12,000 (for hiring a company to do a true consumer survey) the answer was that consumers simply did not know that Syrah exists. They had no awareness of it, especially when faced with a wine shelf that offered them Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir. They would pick the latter just because they had tasted it previous or they had awareness of it.”

Dissertations were, and research papers today are, blindly graded so she did not have to defend it in front of a committee. But after reviewing it, the judges referred her paper for additional research, which added one year to the process. Amy said she shed a lot of tears when she learned it would be another year of work. In 2013, the glorious end came when she officially received her MW certification. Today of the 421 Masters of Wine in the world, 60 are in the United States. Of those 60, 24 are women.

This professional cohort of 24 women naturally became friends because of their shared knowledge and experiences as expert winemakers, distributors, or wine educators. “We all know each other. We’re all very connected. All of us have each other’s back all of the time,” Amy said. “The most wonderful thing coming out of my Master of Wine certification is my personal relationships with the other women.”

In 2008, Peter left Stolpman to devote all of his time to their Holus-Bolus wine. Amy kept her job in Los Angeles.

Two years before her MW certification, in 2011, she left Veritas and went to work for Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, a wine importer, distributor and retailer based in Berkeley, California. She left in 2022 to devote all of her time to their vineyard and wine labels.

The Joy Fantastic – Vineyard and Label

Peter’s dream had always been to own his vineyard. In 2014, they found a five-acre parcel of land, a steep slope on the western edge of the Sta. Rita Hills AVA, and planted 13,000 vines. They harvested their first crop in 2016 and launched their new label – The Joy Fantastic, which is also the name of their vineyard. Today they grow one acre of chardonnay grapes; 2.5 acres of pinot noir; one acre of syrah; and one-half acre of Gamay.

Learning by doing took on an entirely new meaning to Amy and Peter the first year. With a commitment to organic farming and hoes in hands, they weeded the entire vineyard themselves. They started at the bottom of the steep slope. Days turned into weeks and they were still weeding.

“By the time we finished the chardonnay at the top, we looked down where the pinot noir was and it was all overgrown. We had to start right back over,” Amy said. They immediately assessed the situation. “This was not a good use of our time. This was not sustainable. We only weeded the whole vineyard once.”

But she fondly reflects on the experience.

“We would end the day getting into the car so exhausted but happy because we had been in nature with plants all day,” she said. And more important, she was with her best friend and husband. “It was kind of joyful and kind of fantastic that we had this opportunity to do this.”

Amy is a die-hard fan of Prince who released an album in 1999 – Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. Voilà, they had their name for their vineyard and label – The Joy Fantastic. Only grapes grown in their vineyard are used for that label.

Because of Amy’s prestigious MW certification, after 2013, they were able to sell their wine to European markets in Sweden, Denmark, France and the United Kingdom.

In 2019, they opened a tasting room. Producing about 2,000 cases per year, about 70 percent is sold through the tasting room and their Wine Club with the remaining 30 percent sold to the wholesale market. Their Gamay varietal is the most popular wine in the tasting room. To this day, outside of hiring crews to weed the vineyard and prune the vines, Amy and Peter handle all facets of the operation with one part-time employee. Amy is the marketing team.

She said they stay focused on making the best wine they can to filter out news of declining wine sales. Their sales were even with last year so they have not been affected by the downturn and were fortunately spared any damage from recent wildfires. Amy recommends people who decide to drink less wine spend more on the wine they do drink to support boutique wineries making wine by hand.

“When I lay awake at night and start to have a panic attack about the future, I just have to believe we make the best wine we can. Customers will find us,” she said. “Drink less, spend more.”

Amy served as a judge at Chaîne’s 2024 National Jeunes Sommelier Competition in Santa Barbara where she also conducted a webinar, and in August 2024, she held a blind tasting for Chaîne members. She invites Chaîne members to visit their tasting room in Los Olivos where guests will find a restrained quality to their wine as she and Peter want their wines to have a savory characteristic. “It’s easy to make fruity, high alcohol wines and leave it on the vine until it’s close to being a raisin and then make wine out of it. We pick on the earlier side. We want to find acidity in our wines. Acidity is an element of quality because it is a refreshment factor. It makes you want to take another sip. That’s important to me,” she said. She does not call their wines Burgundian style but instead, inspired by processes used by Burgundy vintners.

To young people finding their way in life, Amy’s story speaks for itself with so many life lessons for everyone. She never pictured herself doing anything other than acting. What if she had not been open to reading those wine books behind the bar in Michigan? Sometimes a secondary interest develops into a primary, fulfilling career. “Listen to the things around you. Keep your mind open. Rarely it’s the case that the only thing that can make me happy is X, Y or Z,” Amy advised.

Amy found happiness and joy pursuing erudite and earthy endeavors within the magical world of wine and by simply weeding five acres of vines with her best friend, husband and fellow vintner. That story is far superior to any plot Tinseltown could ever hope to create!

Featured image above: Peter and Amy in their tasting room. (Photo: Courtesy of Amy Christine)

Links
Holus-Bolus and The Joy Fantastic
The Institute of Masters of Wine
The Court of Master Sommeliers
Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET)