Our Story
Every spring the Sierra Foothills bloom with wildflowers, and the hills around our vineyards look as if someone painted them. That is where our name comes from — and every bottle we make tries to keep its promise.
Our Philosophy
Every Painted Fields wine is made to taste like where it comes from — granite slopes, hot days and cool mountain nights in the Sierra Foothills. We make them in the old-world way: balanced, honest, and built for food, so they feel at home beside any cuisine, from a weeknight pizza to a holiday roast.
And we believe quality should never be out of reach. We craft our wines with the same care as the region’s most celebrated bottles, at prices that make them an everyday pleasure. Great wine belongs on every table — not only on special occasions.
The Name
When Andy Friedlander and Janis Akuna founded their winery on Shenandoah Road in Plymouth, everyone had a suggestion — family, friends, contractors, the advertising agency. More than seventy-five names were put forward. A dozen made the shortlist, each measured against one idea: a wine that would be elegant, timeless and delicious.
The winery became Andis — Andy and Janis, together, and a name that begins with an “A.” But one name on the list would not go away. Painted Fields had been suggested by Paul Almond and Pam Whitehead of Sage Architects, who designed the winery and tasting room. Stand among the rolling hills in spring, when the wildflowers are out, and you understand why everyone loved it.
Elegant, timeless
& delicious.
The brief behind every Painted Fields wine
The Artwork
The name inspired the label. Painted Fields was designed by Kelly Sueda, a painter born and raised in Hawaiʻi and best known for his pastoral landscapes, whose work is held in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art.
Andy and Janis came to the Foothills from Hawaiʻi, so it is fitting that a Hawaiian painter gave these California hills their face: rolling fields and vine rows laid down in colour, the way the valley looks from the vineyard on a spring afternoon. The colours of that label are the colours of this house — and of every chapter we bottle.
Milestones
The People
Co-founder · Marine Corps Veteran
Andy Friedlander
Five decades in commercial real estate in Hawaiʻi — until one night in Amador County convinced him to move his Aloha shirts to the Sierra Foothills.
Co-founder
Janis Akuna
A Certified Financial Planner for more than forty years — and the reason the winery’s name begins with an “A.”
Partner & CFO
Jenae Plasse
A native daughter of Amador County, raised on her family’s cattle ranch in Jackson. A partner in the winery, she keeps it running day to day — and looks after our wine club.
Vintner & Partner
Lorenzo Muslia
Lorenzo joined in 2014 and carries Painted Fields from the Foothills to tables across the United States.
The Winemakers · Atelier Melka
— ◆ —
When Philippe Melka and Maayan Koschitzky agreed to make our wines in 2016, they made us a promise: they are not here to make another wine, but WINES true to this place
It would have been easy. Ripe fruit, heavy oak, a polished style that tastes the same from one valley to the next — wines that score well and say nothing about where they were grown. Instead, they promised to find out who we really are. They walked our slopes, studied our granite and volcanic soils, and tasted old vines that have lived through more than a century of Foothills summers.
Their rule is simple: listen to the land, then get out of its way. So every Painted Fields wine is built around our true identity — balanced rather than heavy, fresh rather than flattened, made for the table and true to the hills it comes from. Not a copy of Napa, and not a copy of France or Italy. A wine that could only come from the Sierra Foothills.
“What excites my brain is when I think about where this wine comes from.”
Winemaker
Consulting Winemaker
Philippe Melka
A Bordeaux-born geologist turned winemaker, Philippe trained at Château Haut-Brion and studied soils at Dominus before settling in Napa Valley, where he founded Atelier Melka in 1995. He has crafted multiple 100-point wines and consults for some of California’s most celebrated estates, including Dana Estates, Hundred Acre, Bryant Family and Lail.
Director of Winemaking, Atelier Melka
Maayan Koschitzky
From the vineyards of Israel to Screaming Eagle and Dalla Valle, Maayan has worked alongside some of the world’s top winemakers. He joined Atelier Melka in 2014, bringing a background in engineering and hands-on experience in both cellar and vineyard. Day to day, our estate winemaker Mark Fowler carries their direction into every barrel.
What We Believe
I
Place first
We make wines that taste like where they grow: granite and volcanic soils, high sun, and cool nights that roll down from the Sierra.
II
Elegant, timeless, delicious
The brief written before the first bottle — and still the test every blend has to pass before it carries our name.
III
Every wine a chapter
Each Painted Fields wine tells a piece of the Foothills’ story, from the gold-rush pioneers to the wines we pour today.
Five wines, five chapters — and one place that made them all.
Letters from the Foothills
Stay in the story.
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