He was born in Jalisco, Mexico in 1953 and moved with his family to Rutherford in the Napa Valley in 1957.
[1] Brambila earned a degree in fermentation science at the University of California, Davis, one of the first Latinos to do so.
[2][3] In 1976 he was hired by Mike Grgich at Chateau Montelena where he assisted in quality control.
He worked there for 23 years before leaving in 1999 to become the general manager and winemaker at Peju Province Winery.
They also own the Napa Wine Merchants cooperative tasting room as well as several thousand acres in the Chiles Valley.