Lang & Reed
A True Family Affair
Felton Skupny was quietly coloring in a corner of a crowded tasting salon in Lake Tahoe. Like so many little girls before her, she’d been dragged along on a work trip and asked to entertain herself while her parents “took care of business.” Felton’s mother, Megan, was busy a few feet away, engaging with people about her family’s wine, and pouring them yet another glass of it. Megan’s husband, Reed, who had made that wine, was in a different area of the same large room, talking about the efforts their family takes to produce the Chenin Blancs and Cabernet Francs of which they are quite proud—and also quite dependent upon for their livelihood.
When Megan next looked over to that corner, she was briefly alarmed. Several people had gathered around her daughter— What was wrong? Was Felton OK?—Megan hurried over, only to discover that her daughter had turned her attention from drawing on her paper to drawing on the labels of wine bottles that the bottles’ new owners were presenting to her. She was “autographing” mommy and daddy’s wine, providing a personalized artistic flair to each bottle for their appreciative customers. Megan beamed—the third generation of Skupnys had gotten involved in the family business even earlier than anticipated.
Lang & Reed winery was established by Reed’s parents, Tracey and John, in 1996. Lang and Reed are the middle names of the Skupnys’ sons, Reed and his brother, Herzy. Today, Reed and Megan run the winery alongside Tracey and John, while Felton and her brother Hawk await their turn. “I may be an anomaly, but I love working with my in-laws,” laughs Megan.
Megan moved to California from Georgia, where she had attended the University of Georgia for two years before transferring to Cal Poly Humboldt. “My mom and I packed my Jeep and drove cross-country.” When they got to Humboldt County, she had only one question: “Where the hell are we?” This was not the California she’d seen on television. But they were there, and school was about to start, so they unloaded the Jeep and Megan stuck around.
She moved into a house with five other girls and a tatted-up man named Nick who, in addition to chain smoking Marlboro Reds, introduced Megan to Reed Skupny. Reed showed up with his “long hippie hair” and a bottle of Lang & Reed Cabernet Franc, and the two hit it off. But it wasn’t until a few years later, when they were both living in New Zealand, that their future together really solidified.
From there, the couple sold their few belongings, packed up the rest and moved to Chinon in France’s Loire Valley. It was there, Megan says that they fell in love with Chenin Blanc, and with each other all over again.
Reed and Megan married in France in March 2009 and eventually made their way back to the United States, where they started a family of their own, and took on new responsibilities helping Reed’s parents run the winery.
When the pandemic struck in 2020, Lang & Reed found itself in the same bad situation as so many other small wineries. They were largely dependent upon retailers and restaurants to sell their wine, so when those began to close they immediately felt the impact.
“We weren’t going to survive if we didn’t adapt,” remembers Megan. Megan and Reed wanted to get to work, but that was difficult to do when the world around them seemed to be shutting down.
Then Megan had the idea to invest their newfound time in marketing, and the family started their own self-produced cooking show called “SIP (Shelter in Place) and Savor.” The show featured the family, gathered in their own kitchen, cooking great meals paired with Lang & Reed wines. The show was a hit on the internet, and as the Skupny family found their way into more and more quarantined houses, so did their wines.
“Sometimes the kids would throw a fit on the floor, Reed and I would be pounding wine—it put a very realistic face on Lang & Reed,” remembers Megan, smiling. “It took the pretense and the idea of ‘fancy Napa Valley’ out of it and really started to pair our personality with our wine.”
Megan says she especially enjoyed the oyster episode, where Reed taught her to shuck oysters, and she was also a big fan of the “Ode to Zuni,” a roast chicken dinner they paired with Lang & Reed Cabernet Franc. Her favorite episode, however, was preparing smoked pork chops, which began with them butchering an entire pig on their countertop. “We didn’t really know what the heck we were doing,” Megan admits. But that didn’t keep them from purchasing a massive sow and attempting to butcher it the comfort of their own home. On camera. “We didn’t even know how to get the hair off of her. We tried a blowtorch,” she said, quickly adding, “That didn’t work.”
What did work was showing the world the very real side of their family, and bonding with each other, while the world outside was chaotic. Lang & Reed’s brand recognition improved during that time, and they were able to move to more direct-to-consumer sales that kept the family business in operation despite the struggles of retail outlets—a reliance that proved catastrophic for many other small wine producers. Most importantly, perhaps, in a time when things were scary, the family had fun. “The kids still ask if we can make more videos,” grins Megan.
During that time, of course, the pandemic was far from the only issue threatening the wine industry. Blessedly, Lang & Reed’s wine production was relatively unscathed by the devastating Wine Country fires of 2020. But there were other systemic problems coming to light within the world of wine. Megan says she felt an intense weight settle upon her when she read a piece in the New York Times that exposed the rampant abuse of women who had pursued the title of Master Sommelier. She already had an understanding that the path of women in wine was far from an easy one, but reading this article spurred her to take action.
“The underrepresentation of women in the wine industry actually was a driver for me,” she says. She joined an organization called Badass Women in Wine and found an industry mentor. When she discovered that the founder of the Battonage Forum, whose mission is to “stir up the conversation on women in wine,” was in her MBA cohort at Sonoma State, she reached out to her, too. “Here in Napa, I see all of these amazing female winemakers, all of these women-run wineries,” she recalls, thinking about those who inspired her to pursue her own career in wine, and those, including her own daughter, Felton, who she wants to inspire and mentor.
Visit Lang & Reed’s new tasting room housed in a historic Victorian on the corner of Spring Street and Oak Avenue in St. Helena and you’ll likely find Megan, along with other generations of the Skupny family, there to welcome you.
