WillaKenzie Biographies: Bernard Lacroute
Bernard and Ronni Lacroute are the co-owners of WillaKenzie Estate. They met as graduate students at the University of Michigan, and after many years of living on the East Coast and in California, they bought the property that became WillaKenzie Estate in 1991. They have since divorced, but continue their collaborative business partnership actively guiding all aspects of grape growing and winemaking at WillaKenzie Estate.
Bernard Lacroute grew up in a small village on the eastern edge of Burgundy, France, where he developed an early taste for Pinot Noir, instead of milk. After a classical education with much Latin, mathematics, some Shakespearean English and vast quantities of bad Pinot Noir, he graduated with Master’s degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from the French school system. Committed to more esoteric stuff and more bad wine, he went off to study Plasma Physics with a NASA fellowship at the University of Michigan, where he met Ronni, improving his skills in spoken English (no more Shakespeare), and surviving more bad jug wines. After a successful career building computers, then computer companies, and with a taste for progressively better Pinot Noir, Bernard decided to close the loop and return to his roots. WillaKenzie Estate is his dream to make great Pinot Noir in an environment relatively unencumbered by bureaucracy, where tradition can be blended with innovation.