Jill always felt that the intersection of nature and culture was the most important thing. She studied botany at Penn, researched ancient farming techniques in Israel, and studied traditional methods for soil health in grad school at UC Davis. She pioneered “farmer to farmer” networking for sustainability in the early 90s while working for a family farming non-profit, and ran programs training farmers on direct sales, such as CSAs and farmers markets, before local food had the momentum that it has now. As the family grew, that passion translated into more local action, like teaching cooking from the garden classes in the local grade school, and serving on the Napa Farmer’s Market board. She runs the business side of the family farming and wine business.