Steve has been in the California wine business for over 30 years. He started as a viticulturist working for Foundation Plant Services in Davis, CA, growing grape nursery stock. He then joined Clos Du Bois winery in Sonoma County, where over 15 years he managed the grape supply as production grew from 200k to 1M cases, by increasing both the number of acres farmed and quantity of grower purchased grapes. He was General Manager of the winery for 3 years, overseeing both grape supply and winemaking. Steve then joined Constellation Brands where he was responsible for the annual grape supply of 35M cases of wine and over 200 products with bottle prices from $5 to $200. He managed over 13k acres of vineyard across California and Washington and worked with over 1,000 growers. Steve consulted with Constellation vineyards in Canada, New Zealand, Italy, Spain, and Argentina, and spent the last 3 years as General Manager of three wineries in Central Coast producing 5.4M cases of wine annually. Steve is a past president of the California Sustainable Winegrowers Alliance and the Sonoma County Viticulture technical group, and past member of the California Pierces Disease Task force and American Vineyard Foundation. He has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from UC Berkeley and a Masters degree in viticulture from UC Davis. Steve lives in Healdsburg, is a member of the board of trustees for Alexander Valley School district, consults in vineyards in Sonoma and Napa, and teaches at SRJC.