Imua, mana, hōkū, hapa, ʻāina, aliʻi — these words in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi stood out to David Joseph Sedeno, 62, when bestowing names upon his various wine blends at Pono Wines in Napa Valley, California.
“Living pono is to seek balance and harmony,” his business explains to customers. “It is in this spirit that we make Pono Wines.”
Sedeno says that the first day he walked into Napa Valley, he was changed by its wine, its people, its food and its beauty. Eventually, the career firefighter felt the pull to officially join the wine industry in 2015.
“I’m a kid from Kalihi who never went to college, became a firefighter, and then, for God’s sake, I started making wine in Napa,” he said. “There are no limitations other than the ones you put on yourself.”
Sedeno was born and raised on Oʻahu. In Hawaiʻi, “my family goes all the way back,” he noted.
His great-great-great grandmother served as a handmaiden to Queen Liliʻuokalani. Sedeno remembers listening to the stories his great grandmother shared at her hale in Nuʻuanu about playing with Princess Kaʻiulani as a little girl.
His mother, Kilohana, grew up with his father, David — a descendant of Puerto Rican laborers — in Kalihi. The two went to high school together. Kilohana had a cleaning business, while David worked as a carpenter.
Sedeno and his younger sister spent their childhoods in Kalihi Valley. He attended Farrington High School with lifelong friends until his sophomore year. Then, Sedeno decided to blaze a new path. He transferred to Henry J. Kaiser High School as a junior.
“When I made the change, it was all positive,” Sedeno recalled.
He played football and competed in hurdling. Sedeno dreamed of being a professional football player but after graduating in 1982, he pivoted to military service — eager to leave Hawaiʻi as a young man.
“You don’t know how different life is until you leave, right?” Sedeno posited.
Although he first considered the U.S. Navy, and later the U.S. Coast Guard, he was ultimately deterred by the power of the kai. He decided, instead, to join the U.S. Air Force.
Sedeno received a list of jobs he qualified for after taking an equivalency test. He quickly opted against the bomb technician role. He also didn’t want to sit in an office. What called to him? Firefighting.
“That was purely accidental,” Sedeno said. “That was just happenstance.”
The Air Force launched him into his firefighting career. He spent the first three years of his tour in Sacramento. During his first week in California, Sedeno recalled the temperature surpassed 112 degrees every day. The heat fed his initial culture shock.
But soon, Sedeno was embracing his independence away from home. He hadn’t traveled in his youth, so he requested to go overseas. Ironically, Sedeno was sent to Hickam Air Force Base on Oʻahu for his last year in the service.
Then, in 1988, Sedeno was offered a job as a junior firefighter for the city of Roseville, California, in the Sacramento metro area. He spent 35 years working his way up through the ranks. Sedeno drove a ladder truck for much of that time.
“My career spanned everything from 9/11 to the Rodney King riots and the big wildfires in L.A.,” Sedeno said.
He’s responded to dumpster fires and mall fires. Sedeno depicted the job as “long stretches of boredom, interrupted every now and then by utter chaos.”
In 1990, Sedeno’s daughter, Chanel Kaʻiulani, was born, followed by his son, Joshua Kawika, in 1997. Their California community grew tremendously. Though the Kānaka Maoli population remained miniscule, the ʻohana felt close to their roots.
As the years passed, Sedeno developed an increasing fascination with beer brewing and later, winemaking.
He and a coworker were inspired to open The Firehouse Brewing Company. Sedeno also applied for a wine broker’s license to represent small producers. He knocked on doors around Wine Country, tasting vinos and offering his representation.
“From where I started to where I am now, it’s a universe away,” Sedeno said.
In 2016, he married his second wife, Carole, who hails from Maine. Around that time, he retired, marking an end to his firefighting days, and sold his wine brokerage.
That kicked off a new adventure: Pono Wines.
His first vintage dates back to 2012 and debuted in 2015. Today, the business’ collection of seven includes two types of Cabernet Sauvignon, one Pinot Noir, a white blend, a red blend, a sparkling white wine and a blanc de noir, named after Sedeno’s granddaughter, Kaia.
Sedeno sells around 1,200 cases annually, shipping to dozens of states, including Hawaiʻi.
In this industry, “there’s room for anybody who’s passionate,” he said, adding “It looks glamorous, but it’s a lot of work.”
Sedeno welcomes customers onto his electric boat for wine tastings, puttering along the Napa River. Recently, three wāhine from Maui came aboard to try Pono Wines for themselves.
Though he’s grateful for a childhood spent in the Islands, Sedeno doesn’t imagine he’ll move home (with some of the onus placed on Oʻahu’s worsening traffic). Instead, he may set his sights on new horizons in Portugal and beyond.
This article is reprinted with permission from OHA's Ka Wai Ola newspaper: "Napa Valley’s Hawaiian Winemaker," by Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton in its November 2026 issue, Vol. 43 No. 11. Read more at kawaiola.news.
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