Nomen Wine: Three Sisters and a Shatterproof Dream
Sisters Moira (27), Me-Z (24), and Rosie (20) are changing the landscape of the wine industry on their terms. Having grown up and worked on their parents’ winery, they were fortunate to experience all facets of the industry through the years. They now own their own wine brand – Nomen Wine. Their bottles may be shatterproof but their ceiling sure isn’t.
I sat down with Moira O’Reilly, the eldest sister of Nomen Wine to discuss their life growing up in the wine industry, their passion for industry change, and advice they have for women wanting to build their own career.
“People are often shocked that it’s just us running things.
We’re sisters. We’re doing it all. If you have any questions about anything – if you want to see anything, you can literally just send us a text on our main line and one of us will respond to it.”
Noticing and innovating
The wine industry can often feel very traditional, and as Moira referred to it, “stiff”. It is a thousands-of-years old industry, and as a result is not the most welcome to change.
Regardless, the O’Reilly sisters fearlessly went forward and created a company that addressed the things that weren’t working for them, and from what they have observed, not working for a lot of young people.
Approachability of the wine industry
Moira admits this is more of a dislike than an actual problem, but it is something they wanted to ensure was part of their brand. They want to include, welcome, and educate, rather than prove their wisdom or intimidate.
Sustainability of glass bottles
This was an actual problem. Glass bottles are heavy, require excessive packaging, and proved hard to recycle. With Nomen Wine, they set out to find a sustainable bottling solution. Welcome, PET.
No men?
A play on words, their name “Nomen” means “family name” in latin – all the sisters have the same last name. It also can mean “No men” – they’re an all girls team and proud of it.
The advantage of age
Since Nomen is a small company, all sisters help out in all areas, however each has their strengths.
Moira is the oldest sister at 27. She handles all of the direct-to-consumer selling, operations, and management of the company.
Me-Z, 24, does all of the labels, artwork, media, and photography.
Rosie, 20, is their “in-house Gen Z” and provides valuable opinions on company direction. Still in college, she works part-time but has helped with everything in the winery.
Growing up on the vineyards kept them grounded
“Summers in the vineyards were so fun. Being able to see the sunrise and you’re on a slanted hill in your cowboy boots and in the dust and you’re just watching the sunrise above all the vines that you’re working on and you experience such a deep respect for Mother Nature.”
The O’Reilly sisters feel lucky to have grown up on the vineyard, because not only was it beautiful., it taught them the value of hard work.
“We definitely weren’t treated like royalty or anything. We had to work from the very dirty ground all the way up. All of us had that grueling experience in the vineyards waking up at three or four a.m. because you wanted to beat the sun. Once we were college age, we could find what we liked within the industry and stick to that.”
A covid commitment
After visiting other wineries and tasting rooms and experiencing the “stiffness” and sometimes, “snobbery” that can exist within the wine industry, Moira, Rosie, and Me-Z knew they wanted to to make a change.
Covid hit, and the sisters were scattered all over the map and at various jobs. They all quit what they were doing, came home to Oregon, and inspiration hit.
“We were all in the same place, so that’s when all the ideas just started flowing. We’re like, we want to change that. We want to change that. We want to do this. How do we put it all together?”
Pioneers of PET
Although, Moira remarks that the state has it pretty ironed out by now, when Nomen began they “had to fight to recycle glass” from their tasting room in Washington. This often led the ladies to take the bottles down to the recycling center themselves to avoid mixing them in with the trash.
Glass is also heavy and it takes a lot of packaging to ship. By finding an alternative to glass bottles, they were getting rid of the use of tons of cardboard and styrofoam.
The next challenge was to find an option that was good for the body, the environment, and the palate. They first looked at aluminum – but this can come with a plastic lining that often contains BPAS. It can also have a material that corrodes and effects the flavor and quality of the wine.
That’s when they discovered PET (polyethylene terephthalate)- “the most sustainable form of plastic out there.” Why? It is BPA free, 100% recyclable ( yes, they even developed a PET cap) and has no effect to the flavors of the wine.
“The weight of a PET bottle is 10 times less than a glass one. We’re able to ship them out in smaller, custom sized boxes. A six bottle box is actually the size of a shoe box. And we don’t have to put any packaging in there at all.”
The bottles are shatterproof, easy to ship, and can be reused after you’re done with the wine. The Nomen girls find they make the perfect water bottle.
Industry pushback and the changing of tides
“When we first started, our consumers loved it. We had a lot of subscriptions on our website. They were buying over and over again.
The only pushback we got was from within the industry. Other winemakers, other wine producers, said “it’s just tradition.” They said, “No, we don’t do that.” People hear the word plastic and they get immediately scared. We understand because there are a lot of harmful plastics out there.
But this is different, this is PET.”
Nomen believes they are one of the first companies to do high quality wines in alternate packaging. They have strong relationships with the vineyards they source their grapes from, and they see the wine all the way through production.
“After a couple of years, people within the industry started approaching us, asking, how did you guys do that? Where did we find the bottles? How do we do this? Because we had to, we figured out everything on our own.
We’re happy to help other wineries that approach us. We’re not going to keep this a secret….but it was kind of funny seeing that shift in there.”
They weren't always sure they wanted to make wine
Moira admits that each one of the sisters had a moment where they thought they were done with the wine industry after being raised in it. They all went to school and studied different things – but one by one, they slowly came back.
“We love the art of making wine and we like the art of business. We love being entrepreneurs. And so we wanted to put those two together with our own spin on things and really just kind of put what we love out there.”
Nomen doesn’t follow trends – they make what they like because they are excited about it. They let their intuition be their guide and the rest always seems to fall into place.
Advice for women
The ladies at Nomen Wine are passionate about uplifting other women in not only the wine world, but any industry. You can see this on their label art – lawyers, teachers, cowgirls.
When asked about her advice for women hoping to advance in their careers or venture out on their own, Moira had three solid suggestions.
“You can be yourself. I know that is so cliche, but don’t be afraid to bring yourself and part of your personality into your work”
“You feel it’s not working? You create an environment where it does work. That’s what me and my sisters did in 2020. We came together. We made it work. We all quit our jobs to be able to start this together.”
“You have a lot of freedom to be creative. No one should ever be unhappy in the job they’re doing. Sit and reflect on what you like to do and ask how you can bring that in a creative way to your work life.”
What's next?
The Nomen women are excited and have big plans for the future.
This year, they plan to redo their entire website and market themselves as a virtual winery.
“We’re shying away a little bit from the regular day to day tasting room. On the theme of moving away from stiffness, we’re trying to make things a little bit more lively and fun.”
Nomen plans to produce videos of themselves introducing varietals, and showing the behind-the-scenes work of a winery to help educate and engage their customer base in a new way. They will also host interesting pop-up events in the tasting room throughout the year. Think food trucks, music, and of course – wine.
Just going off their track record, we wouldn’t be surprised if you begin to see more wineries begin to embrace the idea of an online tasting room in the next few years.
If you would like to see more of Nomen wines, check their website out here: Nomen Wines.
Follow them on instagram for the latest updates.
Editor
Natalie is co-founder and editor of The Grapevine Magazine where she helps winemakers big and small tell their stories. She lives in Manhattan, New York City.
