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Danielle Nichols
FOUNDER
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Katie Nichols
GENERAL MANAGER & WINE DIRECTOR
DANIELLE NICHOLS
Danielle has never been afraid to go a little off-piste for the best terrain. A Stowe native with over a decade of experience coaching skiers around the country, Danielle had a knack for finding adventure both on and off the hill. Her travels brought her to some stunning global locales for world-class skiing- Austria, Chile, New Zealand- where the wine just happens to be kind of awesome, too.
Fast-forward to 2011, and the result of wanting to bring all that incredible, gluggable, authentic natural wine from around the world back to Vermont was born: Cork Waterbury.
Danielle put down roots back home in Stowe, and with her husband, two kids, two donkeys, several chickens and a goat, still found time to open Cork Stowe in 2015. Although she misses the Waterbury location, she can’t deny that the restaurant in Stowe has taken several wonderful turns she never imagined. But, then again, sometimes the best trails are the ones you make yourself.
You might just share a gondola ride with Danielle this season. And if (when) she smokes you on the hill, at least there’s apres at Cork to make everything better.
KATIE NICHOLS
Katie Nichols can still remember the first bottle that made her want to work in the wine biz- Lamoresca Nerocapitano: old vine frappato from Sicily, tenacious and earthy, complex and just a little bit untamed. Although she’d bartended for her big sister in the past, Katie only truly immersed herself in the world of wine when she got a job slinging wine for The Wine Bottega in the heart of the north end of Boston.
The second day on the job, with a case of full-blown bronchitis, she made a one-day trip to New York for a major trade tasting of Dressner wines. As Katie often says, sometimes you’ve just gotta “send it.” After two years in Boston, she and (her now husband Stephen) decided to move back to Stowe in 2015 to help Danielle get Cork up and running. Now, as Cork’s general manager, wine director, social media maven and lover of Italian fizz, Katie takes on the many unknowable challenges of running a restaurant and retail shop, showing untamed wines (we still have Nerocapitano in store) and artful concepts in a busy tourist hotspot. Because Katie doesn’t cruise- she sends it.
Why bother?!
Why natural wine, you ask? The reasons are endless and, honestly, why not?
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