Emma was born in Australia and grew up with parents that were avid home cooks and wine enthusiasts, who later moved the family to the Twin Cities. She got into wine in a serious way when she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to become an ESL teacher and discovered the joys of California wine. These “gateway” first bottles of wine led her to wine classes at U.C. Berkeley and U.C. Davis Extension, a job working in the tasting room at Ridge Vineyards, and Sommelier Level 1 Certification. She later explored the world of sherry and became a Sherry Wine Specialist and passed the WSET Level 3 Exam. After years in California, she and her husband moved back to Minnesota where she joined the Rootstock team in May 2022.

She loves combining her teaching experience with her wine knowledge to help wine hunters find the right bottle of this life-enhancing drop. In her spare time, she can be found writing, exploring her new home city of Duluth, and searching for the next great value wine.