The El-Sayeds: Scientists, Vintners and Farmers! Life in Livermore Valley

One of the most striking revelations about Remily and Tarric El-Sayed is that they are always happy! Things that would stress any other person out to the point of tears, puts smiles on their faces and a challenge in their hearts and minds. I’ve watched them approach problems with genius and happiness --- a rare and amazing treat to be able to “hang” with them and an honor to have known them all these years.  

As you read this Blog you might just shake your head at the amount of sheer work they get done in a day. And not just at their jobs, but personally as well. I think I might be able to handle a small part of their life on a farm, but all that and then a full time career and family life too? No way!  

When Remily and Tarric came to visit us earlier this year, they generously brought in a few bottles of their recently milled and bottled extra virgin olive oil. SO yummy! Luckily we had giant sourdough croutons on hand for a salad, and we were in pure bliss with this amazing treat. And luckier still, you’ll all be able to take a personal bottle home when you visit us for the annual Ballou Plum Shred Party on Saturday, May 2nd. Artisanal EVOO fresh from the El-Sayed’s olive orchard to you!

It’s been time for a while now to feature them in our Blog. And what a wonderful opportunity to do so as a tie in to the Shred Party and our party favor. So please enjoy learning more about Remily and Tarric as you read their Blog.

Remily harvesting olives in their orchard, 2014

Tell us a little bit about your life and times. Where did you grow up, where did you go to college, how did you meet? If you’d like to share some family stories, we’d love to hear them!

Remily:  I grew up In Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) and went to Washington-Jefferson for a BA in Chemistry and Case Western Reserve for a BS in Chemical Engineering. After graduation I moved to Cincinnati to work for Proctor & Gamble.

Tarric:  I grew up in West Los Angeles and went to UCLA for a BS in Chemical Engineering and UC Berkeley for a PhD in Chemical Engineering. After graduation, I also moved to Cincinnati to work for Proctor & Gamble. We were assigned to work on a project together, and after it was complete, we started dating.

Both:  When Tarric proposed, he told Remily that before she answered, she needed to know that he expected to live in California (as life is too short to live in the Midwest!). Rem’s reply was, “well let’s go now; because if I get promoted again I am not going to want to leave.” We were married in April, resigned in May, bought a house in Livermore, drove across the country and were living in California by July 9, 1989.

We have a son and a daughter both in the UC system and they make us proud every day. (Editor’s note:  And the apple doesn't fall far from the tree as they are also very bright, talented and engaging just like their parents!)

Remily and Tarric on their wedding day, April 8, 1989

You both are very successful professionally. Please share some thoughts about your careers: how did you find your professional paths and what inspired your interests? What are you working on now (to the extent you feel you can tell us and not have to kill us!) and what’s next for you each?

Remily: I started in the consumer products industry as a Process Engineer in Industrial Chemicals (glycerin refining) at Proctor and Gamble. I really liked the industry and the hands-on work, and before we moved to California, I quickly found a job at Clorox as a process engineer. While process engineering was enjoyable, I was looking for more and wanted to learn more about the business. I thought about going into sales, but since cross-training opportunities in sales were unheard of back then an assignment in Procurement was offered to which I replied, “What is Procurement and can I do it?” (Proud husband’s note here: Having a technical background, and YEARS of experience in the art of negotiating a purchase on many personal items, she had found a great career path for herself!) The cross-training assignment in Procurement became a full transfer after a year, and I had the opportunity to work on several categories like surfactants, chemicals and corrugated (yes, cardboard boxes). When the Strategic Sourcing movement first came to Clorox, I was chosen to be a part of the effort and assess if the strategic sourcing process was a “fit” for the company. It was incredibly successful for Clorox, but also led me to think more broadly about my career options.

Through contacts I made in the industry, I left for a start-up company in 2000, which coupled strategic sourcing methodology with the power of the Internet. The start-up was very successful, and while it didn't make us rich, I did gain invaluable experience, friendships and more contacts. At that point I decided to start consulting in the field so I would be able to have more flexibility with my time and take the summers off with the kids, and I have made a successful career out of it. For the past twelve years, I have worked as a contract consultant, either by myself or as a part of a consulting team with one of many boutique consulting firms. I have had the pleasure of working across many different industries (high-tech, power, waste management, consumer products, etc.) at this point and continue to enjoy the challenge of the learning curve with new industries, companies and categories and helping companies save money by thinking strategically about their purchasing power.

Remily and Tarric relax with their furry friends

Tarric: I worked at the Aerospace Corp during college, where they developed space-based laser systems. This early experience convinced me that I wanted a scientific career. Although the job market in the early 80’s was very strong, I wasn't interested in working in the petroleum industry, which is where the bulk of the jobs were. Graduate school appeared to be a path to research positions, and because I really wasn't ready to go to work anyway, it was off for more school. I was fortunate to have my pick of graduate schools. There were good schools in the mid-west and east coast that accepted me, but after visiting Berkeley I had made my decision. Now, I often say that my biggest achievements in graduate school were learning to cook, backpacking the Sierras and learning about wine (mostly the drinking part at this point – but it did create a theme in my life).

After graduation, I had several offers from around the country. While Shell Environmental was enticing, it was in Houston (ugh!). While Chicago was exciting, Amoco Chemical had a stodgy feel. My research director consulted for Proctor and Gamble and suggested I look at them, and while I had never thought about consumer products, I found the company to be vibrant and Cincinnati felt homey. I was hired into P&G as an internal Dehydration and Drying Consultant in their Engineering group. It was a great job as I got to play on all of their major new product efforts – anything with a drying step.

We left Cincinnati to return to California after we were married. While I enjoyed my time in the mid-west, I wanted to spend my life in California, and not in the east, south or mid-west. (And it wasn't terribly difficult to convince Remily). I was still considering technical and scientific careers when we returned to California, but by then I had come to enjoy the young, energetic feel of the consumer goods industry. When I came to Clorox, my initial job was similar to that at Proctor, but I quickly moved into a business-facing role as a Process Engineer and began to take on more responsibility. While I enjoyed Clorox, we had two children in quick succession, and the reality of upsizing a house and downsizing salary (Remily thought she wanted to stay home at this point to raise the kids) seemed impossible in California. So we packed up and left for Scottsdale Arizona, where I became Manager of the Laundry R&D effort at Dial Corp. We learned several important lessons here: (1) It’s very important to make sure Company values are a fit with your personal values. You spend so much of your time and mental energy at work, that if you can’t identify with the company on every level, you will hate your job. (2) Remily realized she would be a better mother if she worked than if she stayed home; and (3) It’s important to “never burn a bridge” as they might just take you back! Within a year, we were back in California both working for Clorox again. I moved up through Clorox product development management working on many Clorox brands: Clorox, SOS, Pine Sol, 409, Soft Scrub, Kingsford, Armor All, STP, Hidden Valley, KC Master Piece, Fresh Step, Brita, etc.

World-wide wine tasting!  Aviano, Italy in 2002

When we first met I was struck by the excitement in your vision of having some land in the Livermore Valley where you could develop your own wines.  I loved hearing the stories of the way you actually got friends and family together to produce some of those earliest vintages! How did you come up with the idea and what did you learn about how you wanted to evolve as a winemaker?

Both:   Tarric had a love of wine, both the making and drinking of it, early on. He had visited Napa hundreds of times in graduate school and learned a lot about wine making - - which actually is as much a chemical engineering challenge as an art form. When we first moved to California, we landed in Livermore – mostly for economic reasons. Surrounded by a burgeoning wine country, it was easy to learn more about wine. We met Thomas Coyne (an ex-Clorox employee) who opened a winery, and we volunteer to help him bottle and support large events. One of the first events was Labor Day weekend (which later became the Harvest Festival weekend), and we harvested grapes with a group of amateur wine makers and made wine (we had little idea what we were doing, but there were lots of folks including Tom Coyne who did).

Another early influence were Jim and Francie Mitchell (Editor’s note:  Click here to read our Blog about the Mitchells dated April 26, 2010). Jim made wine and even planted a small vineyard in his backyard. When we returned to California from Arizona, we bought a house in Livermore. It was new construction, so we were able to do all of the landscaping ourselves from scratch. One of the first things we mapped out was where the vineyard would go, and we put in merlot and cab-franc vines. It takes four years from planting to first production, so in the meantime Tarric started finding local folks who would sell us grapes. We would get a couple of hundred pounds and make ~10 gallons in those days. For our first (personal) harvest, we invited friends over to help. It only took a couple of hours and we rented a crusher-de-stemmer and processed in the garage. By mid-afternoon, we were BBQ’ing. It was a fabulous day.

Wine-making with friends, 2014

After four harvests, we accepted the fact that backyard vineyards, surrounded by 6-foot fences and watered too heavily, don’t make good grapes. We liked the look of the backyard, but essentially the vineyard became a big bird feeder. We started buying grapes again. In those days, it was relatively easy to get someone to let you pick a row. We would show up with our crew (close friends), blast music into the field, and pick a half-ton of grapes. It typically took ~2 hours of picking, then it was back to the garage to crush and start the fermentation. The rest of the day was spent BBQ’ing and drinking last year’s wine. I (Tarric) made wine in partnership with a good friend – which allowed us to make bigger quantities (a half ton makes a 55-60 gallon barrel of wine). After 5-6 years of this, we dissolved our partnership as my friend’s home vineyard (up Mines road – no fences) was producing. I've been purchasing grapes every year, but it’s typically crushed grapes now, as this is more efficient for the growers. Our longer-term plan is to put in a small vineyard on our new property, which would require us to start the harvest/BBQ festivities once again.

Livermore home nestled in the 176 tree olive orchard

So fast forward a few years, you’re empty nesters and instead of kicking back and cruising, you are buying a farm --- and not a tiny one either! 20 acres complete with 176 olive trees, a “fixer upper” farm house, a barn, a ton of grapes and well, so much more! And then if that’s not enough, you adopted two puppies! Green Acres indeed! You’ve now moved into your “dream home” (be careful what you wish for, readers!) in the Livermore Valley and in addition to juggling your full time careers, you have new full time “jobs.” Start wherever you’d like, and tell us all about it!

Both: The dream house is really about the location, which we love. It’s just 10-12 minutes from downtown Livermore yet it’s “in the country.” We only have four neighbors, and you can only see one of their houses from ours so we feel very remote. When we bought it, we didn't really think much about the olive orchard but we could immediately see where we would put grapevines. The house itself is not what we wanted.  We were thinking a small ranch house (one story, so as we aged it would still work), a large kitchen for cooking, and a great room for entertaining - - and it had none of those things. But the property itself was fantastic, so we decided to go for it. We closed on February 14 (Editor’s note:  that will be a difficult Valentine’s Day to top!) and spent two nights in it before leaving on a three week vacation in SE Asia to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. When we returned, we formally moved in and the fun began.

First, the house has some issues – which is why we call it ‘Green Acres.’ For example, the washer and dryer are in the middle of the house and the vent line goes under the house. Apparently, some critters decided this would be a great place to nest so it’s completely clogged with years of straw, twigs, animal fur and lint. As a quick fix, we ran a 20-foot flexible 4” hose through the house to the garage. Later, when we started making wine this year (in the garage), we had to vent across the house out a window. It looked pretty hokey, and truth be told, was barely functional as the pantry became awfully humid when drying clothes. We also had a major water pressure issue. We have water provided by a private water company and we’re the last house on the line. So if everyone else is watering lawns and taking showers (as they typically are when we want to get ready for work), our water pressure would drop to zero. So in the middle of a shower, soap dripping in your eyes, all of a sudden - - no water! We've since fixed both of these issues, and we keep our humor as new ones arise, but … “Green acres is the place to be!”

On the project front, we now had a barn and animal pens. The first major project we undertook was to cement in the floor of the barn and take two of the stalls for a wine cellar. Tarric likes to build things himself, so he started the project last summer and finished this spring. We now have 300 sq. ft. of wine storage. We think our neighbors all believe we’re a little strange for doing this (what no horses, goats or alpacas?!?), but it fits our lifestyle. We negotiated in a ton of grapes with the house purchase from the seller, who owns lots of vineyards (good to have a wife who excels in Procurement!) so now we have a barrel of wine ageing in the cellar and we’re starting to make plans for the small vineyard where the animal pens are now.

View of the property from its highest point

The property also had 176 olive trees, which we really didn't think much about when making our purchasing decision. Once we got back from vacation, we realized we needed to learn more about caring for an orchard so we contacted some of the local olive growers to start to understand how to take care of the orchard and what we would need to do to make “quality” olive oil. Remily was very excited about this new project and enthusiastically took it on while Tarric focused on the wine cellar. There’s not much needed to take care of an individual olive tree, but when you multiply by 176 it’s a fair bit of work. Remily would go out every weekend (yes, in her Michael Kors sunglasses) and tend the trees including trimming water suckers, weeding, cutting the grass with a lawn mower (yes a push mower since we do not own a tractor and, yes the neighbors thought we were crazy), and spraying for fruit flies weekly. Having a well on the property allowed us to water, and we learned later that while olive trees are very drought tolerant, if you don’t’ water them they won’t bear fruit or the fruit will shrivel up and produce very little oil. Well, we had lots of fruit! Remily contacted some of the harvesting companies to contract for picking, but they were reluctant to even come look at the property to assess the crop.  When the first one came to inspect after much persuasion, he told us he could only stay five minutes. But when he saw the orchard, the quality and amount of fruit, he stayed over an hour. He walked the entire orchard slowly and told us afterward he hadn’t seen this quality or quantity in two years. The best part was when he asked Remily, “do you have a tractor?” and she replied “no,” then “do you have a flat bed?” and she replied “no,” then “do you have a forklift?” and she replied “no,” then “do you have bins to put the fruit in?” and she replied “no,” but she stopped him and with a confident tone told him “my husband has a truck with a hitch and we can rent everything needed.” That day we agreed on a price and made a deal for 30 workers to pick our crop. The local mill is only 15 minutes away, so we were able to pick and mill in the same day, and we think the quality of the oil is very good.

The olive harvest en route to the presses

You were so kind to bring us a taste of the amazing first edition olive oil from your newest endeavor, and we are mad for it! So much so that we begged you to bottle the rest you have this year for gifting to our very lucky Shred Party attendees --- Yum! What inspired you to do this yourself instead of simply selling the olives to another producer? What will you do differently this year when harvest comes around?

Both: We've made wine many years and sent these as holiday gifts. So this year, it seemed natural to make olive oil for gifts. The bottling steps are much the same for olive oil and wine, so there wasn’t much to learn. The fun part was picking the bottle and making the label. The actual bottling is straight forward, especially if you have a gaggle of college students at your house for winter break!

The one thing we think we’ll do differently next year is to harvest a little later. The mill and pickers determined our schedule, but we found out later that with our quantity (6.3 tons of olives yielding 200 gallons of EVOO), they both would have accommodated us. If we wait a bit later, we can get a slightly different flavor profile and a bit more oil.

Are you still thinking of eventually having a complete winery on your property? Or will you continue to make limited editions for family and friends?

“Never say never,” but we’ll likely keep things small for the foreseeable future. Having said that, we will continue to make wine and gift it. And it’s only a small step from there to a tasting room…. (Editor’s note:  and chapter two in their evolving Blog!).

Touring a small family owned winery in France, 1999

You both love to travel and have been to many interesting places. What do you think your best trips were and where do you still want to visit?  

Both: That’s a very tough question, as the first trip to any place is always magical, and we've never had a trip we didn't enjoy thoroughly. The first international trip together was Europe in ‘89, and we rented a car to drive from Paris to Burgundy for wine tasting. We toured a small family winery there, where the owner showed us the property in her nightgown and housecoat. It had been in their family for over 1,000 years, which we thought was pretty cool. At the end of the tour, we descended into the cellar and barrel tasted. It was a great experience, made better by the fact that she didn't speak any English and we didn't speak French. Contrary to many opinions, we've found the French to be very accepting of humble Americans, and this was a wonderful memory for us.

Tarric and Remily in Cairo, Egypt at the Sphinx, 2005

We've been to Egypt several times, as there is so much to do there and we have family on Tarric’s Dad’s side. Two of our favorites were the walk to the top of Mt. Moses to watch the sunrise and on another trip we went to an oasis on the western boarder of Egypt and celebrated Christmas ‘snow’ boarding on the sand dunes.

Remily and Tarric's 25th anniversary trip, Cambodia, 2014

Our recent trip to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam was definitely a favorite also, and if we can we’ll go back there to explore more, especially Vietnam. One wonderful memory was when we went to the mountains in northern Vietnam and spent a couple of days hiking from village to village. We had lunch at a home-stay with traditional food and finished with a Vietnamese moonshine (which they told us was also traditional!).

Enjoying a Vietnamese lunch complete with moonshine, 2014 - Cheers!

We’re always up for more travel. Broadly, we’d like to see more of Asia as there’s so much to see there and we've only scratched the surface. We’d also like to spend some time in middle/southern Africa for the same reasons.

I have a feeling that you don’t think about retiring the way the rest of us might!  What does retirement look like for you? 

Both: Retirement is really about ‘phase 2’ for us. We can’t really envision not having something to go do, so it will really be a shift from working to make money to working for something we have passion about (and a bit less stress). We've often thought that we would take on activities we enjoy that supported the needs of others. Certainly our hobbies will take a bigger role in this – so expect to see olive oil and wine making – but were also thinking we’ll spend more time giving back.

Remily and Tarric at Wineglass Bay, Tasmania, Australia, 2013

If any of our readers would like to chat with you or have questions for you, how can you be reached? 

Please feel free to send us an email:  tarric@el-sayed.us or remily@el-sayed.us

A warm thank you to Tarric and Remily for sharing a slice of their life and times with us and generously agreeing to stock our Shred Party with enough extra virgin olive oil for all to take home and enjoy--- a party favor that will be hard to top! We’ll keep you posted on their journey, and if we are lucky, maybe we’ll be able to feature some of their wine at a future Ballou Plum event.

Tarric and Remily, Phuket, Thailand 2014