Life is but a stage and each must play his part, here's to life!

The wine soaked, career biography of the guy who built Artisans on Web and still shows up to work.
Education: C.S.U., San Francisco, Bachelor of Arts U.C. Davis, Master of Science, Enology & Viticulture
Language: English, Spanish studied: Italian, French, a little Thai, 6 words in Mandarin
Interests: Wine, Music, Dining, Literature, Current Events, Computers and great wine accessories

A native Oregonian who moved to California by way of Arizona and Washington state in his youth, he became interested in a wine career as a pre-med undergraduate at San Francisco State University. After completing undergraduate studies attending the University of California at Davis, leaving the pursuit of medicine and earning a master of science degree in viticulture and enology in 1975.

Life as a budding vintner began in 1975 while managing a 30 acre Chardonnay and Cabernet sauvignon vineyard in the mountains above Napa Valley, which later changed owners and became known as Pride Vineyards. In 1977 moving on to gain practical experience in other aspects of wine production, first working under winemaster Philip Togni at Cuvaison as Assistant Winemaker; then for Warren Winiarski at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars in the cellar; for Jim and Barbara Spaulding at Stonegate Winery as Winemaker/Vineyard Manager; and for Robert Mondavi Winery as Assistant Grape Buyer.

In 1981, I was hired by William Hill Winery as a winemaking consultant, and quickly promoted to the position of Vice President and Winemaker. During my winemaking stint at William Hill, I built production from 5,000 to 40,000 cases, established two additional product lines, was responsible for an annual capital and production budget of more than two million dollars. We renovated an old prune warehouse into a modern, fully-equipped winemaking facility in Napa. With William Hill looking to expand, I projected winery development and production needs at annual production levels to 160,000 cases. As Winemaker, I was also involved in marketing activities for the United States and Canadian markets.

Leaving William Hill where I had been given the chance to start wines under my own label I founded Artisan Wines in 1984, and soon brought in well-known designer Jeffrey Caldewey to create its distinctive marketing image. In addition to producing and marketing Napa Valley wines under its own signature label, the firm created and marketed two negociant brands, and a line of French wines made for the American market. We offered three price tiers, avante garde packaging at the time, and a boutique approach to Napa Valley and California and import appellations. Production of all brands reached 12,000 cases and selected national distribution.

Under my guidance out of necessity and interests, Artisan Wines evolved into Global Wine Company in 1989, which focused on negociant activities, new brand development and marketing and brand development for a new California winery. In addition, falling under the spell of life in the Caribbean, I established Nevis Island Wine Company with friend Michael Todd, a wine distributorship in Nevis-St. Kitts, the British West Indies.

In March of 1991 I relocated to Manhattan completing a marketing program on Madeira for Wilson & Daniels, an international wine broker and Premium Port Wines, U.S. brokers for Croft, Warres, Smith-Woodhouse & Blandy's. I gained experience and developed important contacts in New York by working in retail; as a sales representative for a medium sized New York distributor in Manhattan and from 1994 to 2001 developing New York City distribution for Tricana Imports, an importer of Italian wine that during that time expanded to include the wines of France, Australia, New Zealand, California, Virginia and Spain.
In Tricana Imports I finally found the right time and place to bring the fascination with all things Italian, begun in the early 1980's, to a full ferment with much travel, buying, selling, eating and drinking and finally breaking through the language barrier with the help of of a lively conversational school in Manhattan called Parliamo Italiano.

During this time in New York I wrote wine and travel related articles for the my friend and associate Michael Todd's GrapeZine magazine and eventually served as its' associate publisher; for the Long Island Wine Gazette; developed the first American Wine Guide website for the Mining Company and starting in 1996 began the creation of this Wine Web Portal called Artisans on Web.

With the help of my old friend and partner Gavin Gracey from Napa Valley days, in 1998 Artisan Wine Company began once again producing California red wines under the Harvest and CruVinet labels with distribution in New York, California, Florida, New Jersey and Ohio which continued until 2004. We made them in the Napa Valley and I marketed them where possible in the U.S..

In an effort to expand distribution of the wines of Tricana Imports Gavin Gracey and I undertook distribution in 2001, just before September 11th. To keep the company going in the aftermath of September 11, in the summer of 2002 I drove the vintage 1975 Dino Ferrari from Manhattan to San Francisco and began in earnest bringing the imported wines we had made successful in New York to northern California under our distribution company Global Wines. Finding keeping business going so challenging in the days after September 11 I eventually gave up living in Manhattan and moved to San Francisco full time.

With an old friend and wineman from the days of William Hill, John Sambrooke, in the fall of 2003 I joined for excitement and travel the club of "flying winemaker". Consulting on winemaking in a remarkable new appellation founded on the northern shores of Lake Ontario, Prince Edward County, for Black Prince Winery which continued until 2008.

At the end of 2004 we turned distribution of Tricana Import's wines over to Tricana and on 1 January 2005 I moved to Buenos Aires where for 4 years I worked with exporting to the US hand made wine accessories and developed an Argentine wine brand for export. In 2009 I undertook a long time dream of living in Europe wine country, living on the Mediterranean in Alicante and studying winemaking in Spain.

In mid 2009, drawn by the prospect of a new wine frontier and growing demand for imported wine I began travel to China, establishing an office in southern China's Guangzhou and in 2010 registering a Hong Kong company to facilitate operations there.

Once entangled in the tendrils of the vine, one never really leaves.

Wine Career related travel: Madeira, Oporto and the Douro valley of Portugal, Italy, France, Australia, Hawaii, Canada, Nevis BWI, Washington, Oregon, Hudson Valley of New York, Long Island, N.Y., Finger Lakes of New York, New Mexico, Texas, Spain, Cuba, Argentina, Thailand, mainland China, Hong Kong.