Wineception!

Life has an interesting way of showing you where you should end up. In 2004, if you asked me where I wanted my career to take me, it would have had something to do with building racecars or designing performance suspension systems. I met a lot of very interesting and influential people during that time, many of whom have affected my life in ways they can't even imagine. Several of them will make appearances here.

Motorcycle riding is an interesting hobby because the people you meet really are from a mixed bag. Doctors, lawyers, nurses, accountants, artists, engineers…you name it, you will find at least one. Some time around 2005, I met a gentleman-wino turned lab-rat named Peter Mumford who (I feel) is wholly responsible for incepting my love for wine. Before meeting him, all I knew about wine was that it was 'snooty and yucky tasting'. I remember how the conversation started- simply with Peter muttering some random wine facts as an aside to other various table conversations one night at dinner. He had a very unique way of presenting his information because it was informative and interesting but, most of all, understandable. His chemistry-based explanations really spoke to my inner science geek. You can say that he planted the grape seed in my mind, and there it sat until it was ready to grow. Wineception!

After that dinner, we did not discuss wine [at length] for quite some time… A few years, probably. I would ask him questions every now and again, but for the most part I was doing a lot of my own quiet research. I eventually began reading about varietals, obsessing over regions and terroir, learning the proper vocabulary to accurately interpret and define tasting notes, and so on… I was hooked and it was getting bad.

It became a fascinating hobby…and I’ll be honest…chicks dig guys that can talk about wine. Something about it carried the illusion of style and sophistication, and at 22 years old, ordering things like Chateau LaVille-Haut-Brion and Domaine DeChavalier…who could resist that, right? It was a hobby, and as a hobby it stayed for several years…

…Until an economic wave turned the tides of my life for the first time.