Justin graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a B. A. in 1998.  Soon after, he began work for a commercial real estate firm in the San Francisco Bay Area.  After two years of spending almost every weekend with friends in the Napa Valley, helping at their wineries, Justin realized his true passion was the wine business.  Not one to waste time daydreaming, he made the decision to take the next logical step.

He moved to the Napa Valley and began learning the trade from the ground up.  Justin’s first job was working as a ‘cellar rat’ during the 2001 harvest at Miner Family Winery.  After Miner, he continued his wine business education taking viticulture and œnology classes and working for several other wineries — including Saddleback Cellars and Seavey Vineyards — in various capacities of production, sales and management.

Justin founded HUNNICUTT Wines in 2001 and in 2004 began working for the D. R. Stephens Estate brand – a winery started by his father Don R. Stephens in 1996.  Justin is the Managing Partner of Stephens Family Wines, LLC., which now owns both wine brands, as well as Hunnicutt Wine Company, LLC. a company formed in 2008 to develop a custom crush winery in St. Helena.  The winery was completed in 2011 and makes wine for 20 other small Napa Valley wine brands.

Justin is married to Seana Kendrick Stephens.  They are the parents of Parker (June 10, 2008), Preston (June 1, 2010) and Beckett (May 29, 2012).