Our Story

Success in life requires a strong foundation.

Our owners have spent 26 years together, building from the ground up a life that embodies hard work, perseverance, and love. They believe in mastering skills, from Dr. Axelrad’s 18 years of medical training, to Kelly’s long nights of work while raising their beautiful daughter, they never missed an opportunity to hone their passions. One of the things that made their lives sparkle was, and still is, their love of hosting. From near weekly Dinner parties to Crawfish Boils, they paired celebrations with home cooked meals and an ever expanding collection of wine. The building blocks of their story included starting Southern Delta Catering in 2005 with two of Dr. Axelrad’s longtime friends, when they moved back to Uptown New Orleans after Graduation from LSU in Baton Rouge.

Upon moving to Boston for a 5 year residency in Orthopaedics, they began a yearly tradition of cooking the Crawfish at the Yearly LSU Alumni Foundation as well as starting a yearly Cajun themed Lobster Boil with friends they made in residency. The southern roots kept calling, and so at the completion of training, they moved back south to Lake Charles Louisiana. They built a massive wine cellar and began studying wine. Soon they were regulars in wine country and their knowledge and collection grew, with Kelly spending more time in California working in the wind industry in social media promotion. After 8 years, they realized that for their dream of starting a wine business of their own required an immersion in the fields, and they picked up and moved to Santa Rosa, CA. Knowing that luck is when preparation meets opportunity, they didn’t hesitate at the opportunity to dive head first into the Sparkling wine business in 2019. They had become close friends with a couple that had lost their winery in the 2016 Tubbs Fire, but not before they had picked there first chardonnay for a Blanc De Blanc they made in cooperation with Harvest Moon Estate & Winery under the direction of Randal Watkins. They had set it down as a Pet Nat and moved on to farming grapes. As soon as we moved to Sonoma, we began talking about this sparkling wine and after some prodding and a few bottles of brut rose, we were the owners of 160 cases of Fountaingrove AVA 2016 Blanc De Blancs called Neutral Ground. This was in homage to its neutral flare and the name of the median in New Orleans. It is also one of the two sides of a Mardi Gras float, the other of course being Sidewalk. (This would later be the name of our Blanc de Noir.) We quickly commissioned our good friend in Lake Charles LA, Ned Cappel to create a painting that celebrated our love of festivals, fun, fermented fruit. The name Carnival Wine Co. embodied all of these ideas and the wine was disgorged in Portland Oregon under the direction of our wine consultant, friend, and wine maker, LJ Brimfield.

Our first jobs where in culinary world. After marrying and moving to New Orleans in 1997, we started a catering company, which we continued for 8 years before moving to Boston so Bill could complete his residency. During our 26 years together we have celebrated every momentous occasion with sparkling wine. From the birth of our daughter in 2000 and her first Mardi Gras parade 6 weeks later, to Bill completing 18 years of training and starting his first job back in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The celebrations continued when he was offered partnership in a practice in Sonoma County in 2019. We had developed so many close friends in the wine industry and our move to northern California saw those friendships blossom. One couple in particular, had lost their winery in the 2016 Tubbs Fire, but not before they had picked there first chardonnay for a Blanc De Blanc they made in cooperation with Harvest Moon Estate & Winery under the direction of Randal Watkins . They had set it down as a Pet Nat and moved on to farming grapes. As soon as we moved to Sonoma, we began talking about this sparkling wine and after some prodding and a few bottles of brut rose, we were the owners of 160 cases of Fountaingrove AVA 2016 Blanc De Blancs called Neutral Ground. This was in homage to its neutral flare and the name of the median in New Orleans. It is also one of the two sides of a Mardi Gras float, the other of course being Sidewalk. (This would later be the name of our Blanc de Noir.) We quickly commissioned our good friend. In short time we had gone from a spur of the moment move to Northern California, to owners of Carnival Wine Co with over 160 cases. However, we couldn’t stop there. Interest was strong, and we needed to make more. As luck would have it, we brought a bottle to our friend and winemaker Bobby Moy’s House for a small get together in January, 2021. I remember it well, because this is where we met our current winemaker and good friend Shawn Phillp. It was dry January for him but he made an exception and really enjoyed the wine and our concept. He had been associate wine maker at Shramsberg, had trained in Champagne, and had a degree from UC Davis in Viticulture and Enolgy, and was working on a Masters in Wine Business from Sonoma State. He quickly signed on with us and moved to Lichen Estate where we brought our fermentation tanks and barrels in anticipation of a 2021 harvest. We lucked out with contracting *** tons of pinot noir from Conzalman Vineyards in Anderson Valley and *** tons from Black Night Vineyards on Talyor Moutain, Sonoma Coast AVA. We commissioned the next label, Street Sweeper, with Ned Cappel. The idea for the bottle and name once again arose for our love of everything southern and New Orleans. This was a blend of our two grapes into a sparkling rose, sweeping the two together like the street sweepers that follow the massive parades down St. Charles Ave on Mardi Gras day.