Whether you are a wine aficionado or a novice wine drinker, the fine wine you enjoy represents the marriage of science and art. A great bottle of wine does not just happen! That's precisely why we licensed the Six Sigma name for our family ranch where our vineyard and winery are located. Unique to the wine industry, the name Six Sigma designates that the wine produced here is of the best quality.

Six Sigma is an internationally recognized management process focused on producing high quality products or services to meet the customer's need. With its origins in mathematical models and developed by engineers, Six Sigma represents a philosophy and means of doing business in a way that minimizes errors, ensures consistency, and enhances customer satisfaction. It achieves those goals through a rigorous analysis of data that drives decision-making and practices.

Organizations as diverse as manufacturing, healthcare, insurance and sales have relied on the tried and proven techniques of Six Sigma to better serve their customers. Kaj's background in math and statistics gave him the perfect foundation for mastering Six Sigma techniques while rising through the ranks of General Electric's reinsurance group. Having seen its benefits across the varied businesses of GE, Kaj knew Six Sigma methods held great potential for winemaking. He was so sure of it that he chose to name the family ranch after the process he would employ in the vineyards and the winery.

What does Six Sigma have to do with wine?
At Six Sigma Vineyards and Winery we combine the old-world art of making wine with the science of data-driven Six Sigma principles. To accomplish this, we have gathered a team of experts working with us towards a common goal: Making wine of an extraordinary quality at an affordable price.

The data-driven principles of Six Sigma are employed, not only in the winemaking process as such, but in all stages of the process, for example when we:

• Conduct extensive analyses of soil, water and climate to find the most favorable sites for our vineyards.
• Choose rootstocks that thrive best in the soil composition of a given vineyard.
• Meticulously prune vines to enhance the quality of grapes and to allow consistent ripening.
• Apply chemical and sensory analyses to pick the grapes at just the right time to produce optimal flavor in the wine.
• Listen to the voice of the customer - whether you are a sophisticated wine drinker with well-defined preferences, a social wine drinker who knows what you like and wants the security of consistency, or you just want a good place to start.

In the vineyards and the winery, Kaj is as committed to Six Sigma principles today as he was when he worked in the corporate world. When you see the Six Sigma logo on a bottle of wine, you will know it stands for consistent quality.