New GM at Cupertino’s Vidovich Vineyards gets back to her roots

Brenda Hammond has gone from beekeeping in the hills above Los Gatos to overseeing a winery in the Cupertino foothills.

As the new general manager of Vidovich Vineyards, Hammond has expanded the tasting room hours to include both Saturday and Sunday, has hired staff with hospitality experience and has rejoined the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association. She hopes to host the association’s annual Premier Cruz cabernet event in November.

The vineyard and winery on Montebello Road in Cupertino shares a great deal with nearby Ridge, including cabernet grapes, which Vidovich sells to its more famous neighbor. Both properties enjoy ridgetop perches overlooking the Silicon Valley. Both make age-worthy cabernet-based wines, and both offer a feeling of exclusivity.

“It’s such a phenomenal property,” says Hammond, who recently moved back to Los Gatos after caring for her parents in Florida.  “In fact, it is an ideal setting for events, and it’s going to be even more spectacular when the renovations are complete.”

Hammond’s varied background includes portrait photography, floral design, business management, business development, gardening, raising chickens and beekeeping. She especially enjoyed the latter activities while living in Redwood Estates off Highway 17. She also worked as an executive assistant at Sand Hill Capital during the dot-com boom, from 1997 until 2001.

She served as president of  the Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce from 2007 to 2008 and was chair of both the events and scholarship committees, serving in the executive committee for eight years.

Hammond, who attended West Valley College beginning her junior year of high school, continues to pursue her lifelong love of learning, including many classes with Cynthia Sandberg at Love Apple Farms in Scotts Valley. During the pandemic, while working as an executive assistant at Lockheed in the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, she took online classes at the New York School of Interior Design. She is also a Level 1 sommelier.

These diverse life lessons are informing her vision for Vidovich, as she shepherds the family name—long associated with apricots, prunes and cherries—into a new era of hospitality and community engagement.

A key element of hospitality is food. She knows a bit about this, having opened Restaurant James Randall in 2006 with her son, chef Ross Hanson, who graduated from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. Named in honor of her brother, who passed away from cancer contracted during his years in the Navy, the restaurant was a vibrant part of the Los Gatos scene. In 2013, Hammond sold the restaurant to Ross and his wife Bree, who transformed it into Oak & Rye.

Hammond credits Love Apple’s Sandberg for inspiring her to work with a garden property in Monte Sereno to supply produce for Restaurant James Randall. That love of gardening has her already building raised beds at Vidovich, and she hopes to eventually have chickens and bees there as well.

She recently hired a new winemaker, Barry Timmins, who hails from New Zealand. His wife works in the lab at Ridge, keeping it all in the expanding Montebello family.

Vidovich Winery, located at 18101 Montebello Road in Cupertino, is open Saturday-Sunday, noon-4 p.m.; reservations are required to https://vidovichvineyards.com.