Jill’s Wine Story
When Jill Davis was 20 years old and studying abroad in Paris, she took her first wine course. Even though she spent most of her time in Paris drinking 2 Euro bottles of wine, the course inspired her to one day work in the wine industry. When she graduated from Arizona State University in 2009 she started working for Studio Vino, a custom winery in Tempe. After a year of being Studio Vino’s winemaker and event manager, Jill packed up her life and moved to NYC.
Jill spent the next 7+ years working in various aspects of the wine industry including restaurants (Corkbuzz Restaurant + Wine Bar), events (NY Vintners), consulting (SYPartners) and retail (Convive Wines). During that time she attended her first natural wine festival in Brooklyn called The Big Glou. She was intrigued and amazed by the wines she tasted. Jill’s curiosity about how natural wine is made brought her to the Adelaide Hills of South Australia to spend a week during harvest with the team at Jauma. That year she also completed the WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines and Spirits and decided to move to Australia to learn more about winemaking.
While living in Melbourne, Jill worked two harvests (Two Tonne Tasmania, Limus) while also working as a marketing and subscription manager (Magnum + Queens Wine). In 2019 she left Australia and went on to work harvest in Italy (Foradori) where she learned more about biodynamic farming and fermentation in amphora. Jill returned to the U.S. in late 2019 and spent the 2020 harvest working at Donkey + Goat in Berkeley, California.
In 2021, Jill made her first wine at End of Nowhere winery located in the Sierra Foothills of California. She now makes Heaps Keen in Sonoma.
Jill’s Baking Story
Jill has been baking for as long as she can remember. Her mom taught her how to bake at a young age as a way spend time together. It wasn’t long before she memorized cookie recipes and ‘Jill’s Cookies’ were regularly requested from her older brothers and their friends.
Jill kept baking for family and friends throughout college and after she graduated, she moved to New York City and taught cupcake baking classes for a couple years. She put baking professionally aside as she started studying wine and eventually worked harvests at wineries around the world. She always baked for the winery teams and found joy in sharing her favorite hobby. Jill started her own wine label, Heaps Keen, in 2021 and pairs each wine with a cookie recipe.
After moving to Sonoma County in 2022, she began baking more often and started to volunteer with Cakes4Kids, a nonprofit that bakes and delivers homemade birthday cakes to underserved children who otherwise wouldn’t receive one. Jill’s Cookies officially launched in 2024 with help from her friends Kate Brown, Ben Plourde and many others who have helped taste-test her recipes.
Each cookie is made with love and is dedicated to the memory of her wonderful mom, Cindy Davis.