celebrated sister

 Natalie Wassum: Girl in the Valley

Meet our girl in the valley. Natalie is Director, Sales and Marketing for Canopy Management wines and a founding member of the Wine Sisterhood. A graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a degree in Wine Business, Natalie began her career in the research department of Sutter Home/Trinchero Family Estates, and managed marketing projects for the National Accounts team before joining Canopy Management.

Among her many talents, we especially appreciate Natalie’s passion for food, wine and friends and how she mashes them all up in her own signature style. This makes Natalie our go-to girl whenever we want the scoop on the hot new dinner spot, a soon-to-be-famous winery, or the event to be at on a Saturday night. We joke that Natalie knows “everybody” in the Napa Valley, but that’s not far off the mark.  Need the perfect spot to propose—Natalie will ring up her friend the concierge at Napa’s most romantic inn. Want a private tasting at an appointment-only winery—Natalie will make a call. You get the picture.

Natalie is an avid bocce player on a team called “Joanie Loves Bocce” and as an accomplished home chef, is a member of an active and ambitious St. Helena cookbook club. Every so often she leaves the clubhouse a bit early to whip up paella or something else with way more steps than are necessary on a Wednesday night. Natalie and our friend Helen Jane Hearn also founded Cheese Whizzes, a Napa Valley social group devoted to the enjoyment of cheese and wine. No less than Food and Wine Magazine fell in love with the concept, and featured Natalie, Helen Jane and the Cheese Whizzes in their December 2009 entertaining issue.

Natalie’s network of friends and influencers goes beyond the Napa Valley. She recently attended the kick-off event of New York Fashion Week—the Red Dress Show—as a guest of the show’s creative director, and has provided us with Facebook updates from the East Village and McSorley’s “Wonderful” Saloon.

Natalie has been part of the Tough Enough To Wear Pink? breast cancer awareness project from its inception, and is our point person for Dress for Success and Wine, Women and Shoes, female-focused charities that the Wine Sisterhood and our portfolio of wine proudly support.

Look for Natalie and her black pug Minky, on the bocce courts at Crane Park, St, Helena. Minky is the pug with her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth. Or send Natalie an email if you and your sisters are coming to the Valley. We’re sure she’ll have some ideas on how to make your visit both memorable and delicious.

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Terry comes from a background deeply rooted in the western life and a close-knit ranching family.  Her husband and son are both professional rodeo cowboys. Every year, Terry would attend their events, always culminating in the big final rodeo in Las Vegas. A few years back, as she was fighting her own cancer battle, Terry decided that the western community should get involved. So she launched a little idea called Tough Enough To Wear Pink? The first Tough Enough to Wear Pink? night took place at the Wrangler National Final Rodeo five years ago this year.

Simple idea, really. And just a little bit crazy. She challenged the best professional rodeo cowboys on the plant to don the color pink for one night during the Finals. She enlisted her son to convince his fellow competitors to sport the color pink to raise awareness about the disease and especially to remind women to get their yearly mammograms. Her friends at Wrangler stepped up and provided the pink shirts. And Terry promised a hundred dollar bill to each cowboy who had the guts to do it, just to make things interesting. She really didn’t know what to expect.

So on the designated night five years ago, all the cowboys and cowgirls charged into the arena wearing pink, with most of the people in the audience also sporting pink and cheering their heads off. It turned into one of those peak moments that not only grabbed people’s attention, but touched their hearts. Especially later that night at the Gold Buckle Ceremony when each and every pink-wearing cowboy gave their hard earned money back to the cause. People who were there, and those who had heard about what had happened asked to bring Tough Enough To Wear Pink? to their own hometown rodeos to help their friends and neighbors facing breast cancer.

In response, Terry and her daughter Katie created a Web site to help do just that. Today, celebrating its Fifth Anniversary, Tough Enough To Wear Pink? is a grassroots organization coordinated by the Wheatley women which has spread to rodeos across the U.S. and Canada. The many events over the past five years, large and small, have raised over five million dollars for the cause–most of the money staying right in the community to assist local families. Terry also makes sure that Wine Sisterhood wines give back. A portion of the sales of both Purple Cowboy and Kate and Cassie wines go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Want more information about Tough Enough To Wear Pink? Visit www.toughenoughtowearpink.com And if you’re a fan of professional rodeo and wine, visit www.purplecowboywine.com for a list of very special activities.