About Us

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Karen Fetteroll, winemaker and founder of Epique Wines, began her journey as a artisanal winemaker and grower in Historic Murrieta California, in 2017 on her family estate, which is located at the base of the Santa Rosa Plateau. 

Along with her greatest supporter her husband Douglas Fetteroll, they have created a healthy and organic mindset in their vineyard that yields an abundance of high quality wine grapes with varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cab Franc, Petit Sirah, Grenache and Zinfandel. Other varietals of grapes she crafts into wine are harvested and shipped from the central coast of California, Sonoma, Napa Valley, Oregon and neighboring vineyards. These varietals are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Sangiovese.  

I've been asked by people if I'm ever going to open up a large commercial winery. My answer is "no".  I never really wanted to become a mass producer of commercial wine, maybe if I were twenty years younger however, in this late stage of my life, I chose to focus on small batches of high quality, hand crafted artisanal wines. 

 I believe the terms artisan or artisanal wines,  evokes a particular romantic notion among most wine consumers.  These terms offers reassurance that our  wines are made with extra care by me. I am committed to my craft of making the best high quality wines. Being a small grower and producer of wine, I am able to pay attention to every detail of what goes into our vineyard and our wines. Here at Epique Wines, our quantities are limited but our quality surpass most commercial wineries. 

In defining artisanal or artisan crafted wines, its a production of artisan wines that has traditional ties to a specific terroir, soil and climate. It may even reflect a certain charm or personality of the  small grower/winemaker. 

"The best perk of living next to Temecula Wine Country is discovering boutique, gargiste wineries and meeting like-minded individuals, who devote their lives to refining their craft in wine making. I’ve made many friends that are fellow artisanal craft winemakers,  while attending Viticulture and Enology training through Mount San Jacinto College and at UC Davis’‘ Wine Chemistry Program in California. As students we realized what we were getting into and it wasn’t going to be as easy as we first assumed. 

When it comes to wine making, people assume it is as glamorous as it sounds however, I found it to be one of the most  daunting process physically because there are so many facets to making wine. Those facets must always be in sync to achieve the perfected finished crafted wine. My first harvest and attempt in making wine, was an eye opening experience into the realities of winemaking and vineyard management. I can hardly imagine all of the uncontrollable factors that have to be considered, such as weather, pest management, wind damaged vines, viruses etc., that can make a direct impact on the yield and quality every season. Not to mention, the amount of time spent waiting and correcting the wine during the fermentation process.  It definitely takes a lot of patience and delayed gratification in crafting wine.

My knowledge in wine chemistry was limited and in order for me to create better tasting wines, I enrolled in UC Davis’s wine making and wine chemistry program.  This really was a turning point in my winemaking and helped me better understand the behavior of wine during the fermentation process. Assessing the wine’s pH level to measure ripeness in relation to acidity, for example while evaluating the wine’s aroma and flavor. This means that if a wine is too bitter or too sweet, I need to know how many grams per liter my wine needs to be corrected to get to the best final product. It was important for me to understand chemical reactions, take measurements, and make calculations to fashion the wine must into the most perfect wine possible. It’s no easy task believe me. Don’t laugh, but prior to my formal education in viticulture and enology, I made my first batch of wine watching a YouTube video.  My first and second batches of wine were a disaster with corks popping off the bottles of my unstable Grenache wines. It was disappointing to say the least. I knew at that point that I needed the formal education to produce good wine." 

Karen Fetteroll, Winemaker and Vineyard Grower