Michelle is the Japanese-American founder of Kazumi Wines. With her background in both fashion design and the wine industry, Michelle crafts wines that are a seamless fusion of timeless elegance and artful innovation.

Michelle was born in California, raised in Tokyo, and worked as a fashion designer in Milan and New York before coming full-circle back to California. For the past 12 years she has worked in Napa as General Manager for 90 Plus Wine Club, building partnerships with Napa Valley wineries and promoting premium wines in Asia.

While living in Italy, Michelle developed a passion for wine. She discovered how a nice bottle enhances a meal and turns even ordinary moments with family and friends into cherished memories. In 2009, just as she was contemplating a leap from the fashion industry to culinary school or the wine industry, her father started 90 Plus Wine Club and recruited her to help build and manage the business. Since then, Michelle has earned the Wine & Spirit Education Trust Diploma and an MBA, and has visited hundreds of wineries and tasted countless wines from around the world.

Living and working in Napa, Michelle found herself dreaming of making her own wine, as an outlet for the creative expression she once channeled through fashion design. In 2015, her good friends the Perrets offered her a half-ton of Sauvignon Blanc grapes from their Rutherford vineyard. Michelle jumped at the opportunity and created Kazumi Wines, named after her middle name and signifying harmony and beauty. She painted the watercolor label herself, inspired by a photograph she took while visiting her sister in Honolulu. In 2016, Michelle added a single-vineyard Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon to the Kazumi portfolio.

In 2021, Michelle made an innovative leap that expanded the Napa Valley wine landscape while honoring her heritage. Kazumi became the first brand in the United States to plant, harvest and bottle an ancient Japanese grape called Koshu. This project, in collaboration with her father, Jack Sakazaki, and winemaker Kale Anderson, began with a test plot after Jack’s hobby vineyard was destroyed by wildfire. The vines flourished, and Kazumi’s mouthwatering Napa Valley Koshu is now in its third vintage, embraced in both the US and Japan.

Michelle is thrilled to share her novel Napa Valley Koshu alongside her quintessential Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon wines, all crafted to create unforgettable moments with family and friends.