' Narrow Gate Vineyards - Our Team

Our Team

Frank Hildebrand

Farmer, Winemaker

&

Teena Hildebrand

General manager, Culinary

 

Founded in 2004, by husband and wife team Frank and Teena Hildebrand, Narrow Gate Vineyards is a testimony to faith, perseverance and reinvention. In 2000 they traded fashion industry careers for a new beginning in El Dorado wine country and have never looked back. In 2001 they planted 14 acres of wine grapes and in 2004 built a European style, small, intimate, boutique winery and cellar set amidst majestic Ponderosa pines at 2500 feet altitude.

Frank grew up in Woodland, California, an agricultural community just 11 miles north of Sacramento and is a University of California Davis graduate in Managerial (AG) Economics. He returned to Davis’ winemaking extension program to hone his skill. Today, Frank is both viticulturist and winemaker at Narrow Gate, securing Biodynamic® vineyard certification in 2010 and winery facility certification in 2013. His passion for stewarding the winemaking process, from vine to wine, without chemicals, pesticides or additives, is evident in the vineyard’s biodiversity and soil health and in the natural quality of the wines he makes. His work is his hobby – if he’s not farming wine he’s making wine and if he’s not making wine he’s enjoying wine!

Growing up near Portland, Oregon then moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in middle school, Teena, a University of Colorado graduate in Business Marketing, along with her hospitality team, oversees the business, wine club, marketing and food and wine pairing events. After their second child was born she resigned her fashion industry career and began teaching culinary arts in Newport Beach, California. Today she is also the winery chef creating menus and seasonal dishes for the food and wine pairings, educational vineyard walks/hikes, and seated multiple course lunches served in the cellar throughout the year. Teena also serves on the El Dorado Winery Association board of directors as President.

Frank and Teena reside on the Narrow Gate land with their yellow lab, three cats (one is 24 years old), ten chickens, ten cows, and over 10,000 vines. They have two adult children: Gina, a Cal Poly Viticulture and Enology graduate and second generation Biodynamic farmer and winemaker for her own brand, Lady of the Sunshine Wines.  In 2019 she married Mikey Giugni, also a Cal Poly graduate, and owner of Scar of the Sea Wines.  They reside on the Central Coast of California. Their son Frankie is founder and creative and operations director for his own marketing agency, Extra Hours, LLC, in Los Angeles.

 

Kass Feuerhelm

Vineyard

A local native, Kass plays an integral role in our biodynamic farming and processes related to soil, vine and land management, all throughout our 86-acre farm. Prior to coming to Narrow Gate in 2007, he worked for 6 years after high school as a wildland firefighter and was on the USDA Forestry Service Interagency Hot Shot crew. He’s also had a longtime passion for mountain bike racing. Currently, he is an ambassador for Specialized Bikes. Kass and his wife Dianna, a local realtor, stay busy raising their two grade-school age children.