by Maiah Johnson Dunn
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” Those words written more than 2,000 years ago by Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu contradict everything we’ve been taught. There’s a roadmap we have to follow and many life destinations we have to check off.
Most of us treat our curiosity like a detour or sometimes even a distraction. Instead of exploring, we spend our days negotiating each next step, too focused on arriving to notice what’s happening along the way.
Then there’s Alexandra Bond. From a young age, Bond knew she wouldn’t live a “regular” life. “I was always just a little bit weird,” she explained with a smile. “I could never fit into a box, so I made a conscious effort to be excited about not fitting in and living a more meaningful life that way.”
Bond says she was “always a little bit of a dreamer.” The winemaker spent her formative years with her face in a book and her head in the clouds. She’s always curious, experimenting and trying to learn something new. Bond has always found joy in the journey. “I don’t try to plan my life, and I’m very open to the way the universe guides me along.”
Thankfully, the universe guided Bond to the Finger Lakes. The Newtown, CT native moved to the region after a stint in NYC following college, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in literature and writing. While in the city, she worked at the Petrie Court Café located in the Sculpture Gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bond vividly remembers the day a distributor came in with a bottle of New York riesling. “That’s how I discovered Finger Lakes wine; we were beginning to carry [Hermann J.] Wiemer by the glass.” She quickly planned a trip upstate and fell in love. “I realized what I really wanted was the country. This is where I have to be.”
She immersed herself in the idea of wine, a passion wholly embraced by an older brother through gifts of wine subscriptions and bottles of Barolo and Châteauneuf-du-Pape. She soon found herself at a crossroads. It was a choice of either a cost-prohibitive advanced master’s program in literature and writing or a leap into wine. Bond mapped out her core passions on paper: writing, sustainability and wine. After some thought, she realized that through wine, she could target all three. “I put my notice in and moved.”
Bond started working at another restaurant while searching for her first true winery job during her free time. In 2011, she began working at Thirsty Owl Wine Company, touching all aspects of the industry. “Since I was young and I didn’t know anyone, I would just work seven days a week,” said Bond. She had responsibilities in the vineyard, cellar (including bottling for Bloomer Creek), tasting room and also supported events and marketing content through her writing.
Though she had her hands in everything, Bond was pulled to the cellar. “I loved the cyclical nature of the work,” said Bond, who knew desk-job life was not for her. “Nothing else exists that is such a direct reflection of the earth and life. Wine changes constantly, almost like people do. It goes through awkward phases and exciting phases the way we do, and then it levels out the way we can.”
After a year at Thirsty Owl, she transitioned to Hector Wine Company and Forge Cellars in 2012 as a multifaceted member of both teams. Bond offered her writing and marketing support to help build the new brands while she learned in the cellar. The days were long, especially in the thick of harvest. “I would push myself to the absolute limit and think, ‘Why am I doing this?’ Then I would get to taste why,” Bond stated. “It was very fulfilling.”
Photo provided
In the 12 years she spent at Hector, Bond served as winemaker and eventually partner, while also supporting Forge for a seven-year stint. At one point, she even travelled to France to work directly alongside Louis Barruol (a partner at Forge and a 14th-generation winemaker and icon in the Rhone Valley) to continue honing her craft.
Whether in the Finger Lakes or in France, Bond believes she learned from the best. One of her greatest mentors was Katey Larwood of Damiani Wine Cellars, where Bond joined as an assistant winemaker in 2022.
The role may have looked like a demotion on paper after leaving Hector as a partner. “It felt like going back, but when I got there, I realized it was actually evolution. When you take the ego away and you’re vulnerable, you learn more,” explained Bond. “I had no idea how much more there was to learn until I started working with Katey.”
Those three years at Damiani were transformative for Bond. “I had more freedom in my creative process there than anywhere else.” The year she joined Damiani, she also launched her own label, Vagabond Wines, with her husband and local vineyard manager Jimmer.
Their wine philosophy is simple: to make happy wine. Vagabond has grown organically year over year, guided by intuition and an overwhelmingly positive consumer response. Bond was recently named on a list of 15 winemakers to watch in 2026 by VinePair.
These days, Bond calls herself the luckiest winemaker in the world. She has moved the Vagabond operations to storied FLX winery, Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards, where she now serves as the lead vinifera winemaker. “I am so, so happy,” she said of the change. Her main goals are to elevate Hazlitt’s vinifera program and continue building her passion program, Vagabond.
“When I got to this pretty dreamy job at Hazlitt, it was my 15th harvest,” she said. Though her journey may seem guided by fate, it couldn’t have progressed without her own focus and determination. “I didn’t fall into it early on. I worked really hard to get here.”
Bond says her biggest success isn’t her stunning portfolio of work. Instead, she credits “overcoming the idea that I couldn’t be a mom and a winemaker at the same time.” She is driven by her craft but even more by her son, James. “Being a mom that my kid can be really proud of motivates me. He sees that we can do hard work, and we can do work that makes us happy. We don’t have to settle.”
