New to everything....

[Thomas]

Welcome Z. A fine resume, especially the part about your grandmother.

And Engineer, I didn't know you are exporting wine. Where to?

This gives me an idea: why don't we each contribute our wine resume?

Here's mine:

Started drinking wine when six or seven and hung around my next door neighbor who made it in his basement. I graduated fast and was the first teen in my gang to own a corkscrew, although it was rendered useless as we twisted open our Thunderbirds. At about 28, after developing a bottle of wine a day routine, I decided to take a look at the world and moved to Iran, where I got to explore some truly ancient wine culture and that got me interested in wine history. Back in the U.S. I took a part time job in a wine shop to learn that end of the business; I joined Les Amis du Vin, one of the earliest modern wine clubs; did some winemaking and wine sensory studies; worked for a communications company that created films amd slide shows for wine companies in California (this is when I met Leigh Knowles who presided over Beaulieu and where the bug to start a winery bit me hard); in 1985 I opened my small Finger Lakes winery, Cana Vineyards, and worked as a sales rep for another local winery; began to write about wine and food in 1987; closed the winery in 1992 for financial reasons and worked first for a small local winery and then for Lauber Imports; wrote my first book in 2000 and opened a wine retail shop in Manhattan that same year; wrote the second book in 2006 and the third in 2008.

Through it all, I've come to appreciate the multiple joys of Riesling, and have developed a heightened respect for Italian wines of many regions--and have never lost my love for certain French wines, which was my first wine bent, especially the wines of St Emilion.

So who's next?



[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 04-16-2010).]