Josephine Marlin Tychson became California's first female winemaker in 1886, which was originally on the site of Tychson Cellars, and then became Freemark Abbey. She and her husband, John Tychson, a Danish immigrant, moved there to benefit by the climate, as he had suffered from tuberculosis. They began with a horse and a plow. She was only 31 years old at the time.