A Perspective Formed in High-Stakes Environments

I didn't come to wine through viticulture. I came to it through analysis.

I grew up in a household that valued rigorous education and the kind of work that produces real results. That led me to Carnegie Mellon for chemical engineering, Johns Hopkins for international affairs, and eventually a career as a U.S. Intelligence Officer for the Department of Defense.

In the DOD, my job was to take massive amounts of complex, high-pressure information and turn it into clarity. That training stayed with me long after I left government, and it's the same instinct I eventually brought to wine: take a dense, intimidating subject and make it actually usable for the people who need to make a decision.

The wine thing started almost as a joke. I'd say it out loud, "I'll open a wine business someday," until one day I asked myself why I was waiting.

So I left the government, moved to San Diego, and started over from the floor. My first stop was a local winery, then San Diego's oldest wine store, where I spent years working with avid connoisseurs and helping customers find selections they'd actually enjoy, not just whatever was popular.

Eventually I launched VinoVida, my own online personal wine shopping business, and spent several years helping clients navigate wine with greater confidence, clarity, and enjoyment.

Self-doubt showed up early. Surrounded by serious collectors who had been shopping at San Diego's oldest wine store for decades, I remember thinking: why would anyone take a recommendation from me?

I was worried for nothing. That store taught me the most important lesson of my career: great wine guidance starts with understanding the person in front of you, not with sounding impressive.

Then COVID hit. California became impossible to afford, and I made the hard call to shut VinoVida down.

I joined Total Wine & More. My career evolved there, exposing me to a broader range of clients, environments, and insights that eventually shaped the methodology. That's how I ended up in Indiana, running private clienteling and VIP services, teaching hundreds of classes, and managing a multi-million dollar wine program.

I watched the same pattern play out over and over: smart, accomplished people walked in unsure of themselves around wine. Some bluffed. Some apologized. Almost none of them had ever been given a real foundation to work from.

Eventually burnout caught up with me, and I stepped away.

A former VIP client invited me to teach wine at an office Christmas party at a medical school. While coordinating with the secretary, something stopped me cold.

She mentioned that the doctors, highly educated and deeply competent professionals, encountered wine constantly in both their professional and social lives, and had never been taught anything about it. She said she herself had no idea what to do when wine was on the table.

That was the moment everything clicked.

Wine is a professional skill, and almost no one is teaching it as one. Otherwise competent professionals are simply expected to pick it up on their own, or fake it.

That's why I built Versed in Vino.

My approach to wine education comes down to one belief: you don't have to become an expert to be good at this.

What you need is enough real, working knowledge to stop feeling intimidated and start using wine the way it was meant to be used, as a way of bringing people together.

As an intelligence analyst, I was trained to take complex information and make it clear, actionable, and immediately useful. That's the same instinct I bring to wine. Every program I build is a briefing. Every lesson earns its place, included because it works in the room, not because it sounds impressive on paper.