California North Coast high-profile internship program launches industry careers

Winemaker Dave Ready Jr. hopes that Lindsay Perry and Veronica Hebbard will stay with Murphy-Goode after their internships but has no stake in what they do next.

Both 2021 winners agree that they can’t learn everything they need to know in one year and intend to find further opportunities to “carry wine into the future.”

Hardy Wallace, the 2009 “A Really Goode Job” winner, went on to make a name for himself as one of California’s most innovative winemakers. He founded Dirty and Rowdy Family Wines in 2010 with a focus on producing single-vineyard Mourvèdre and orange wines.

Although Wallace had a sizable following for his eccentric wine blog before winning the dream job, he told the San Francisco Chronicle that the Murphy-Goode apprenticeship allowed him to move to California and get his start in winemaking. His winery position at the time was what was called “Lifestyle Correspondent.” In today’s parlance it would be “Social Media Influencer.”

While Wallace has forged a very distinct professional identity in the wine industry since that time, he told the Chronicle’s wine critic Esther Mobley, “I can now see it’s not about what the job is, it’s about where the job can take you.”

Ready would agree. He notes that in 2009, Murphy-Goode ended up hiring two of the applicants who were runners up — Rocky Slaughter and Adam Baugh, who both remained working in the North Bay for several years.

Baugh met his future wife, then Jenna Weber, during the “Really Goode Job” interview process. With his “ready” laugh, the winemaker teased this summer’s finalists, “Look around, there might be future nuptials in this crowd too.”

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