FEATURED PERSONALITIES
Allen Meadows
leading Burgundy wine expert/founder of Burghound.com
Forks & Corks University Burghound Insights Seminar
Arguably the most followed and well-known enthusiast and reviewer of the wines of Burgundy, Allen Meadows was a finance executive for 25 years, holding a variety of positions including stints as the senior vice-president and director of corporate development for Great Western Financial and chief financial officer for Fidelity National. In 1999 he elected to retire to author a book on the subject of Burgundy but a year later decided to found Burghound.com, a quarterly review that is presently devoted exclusively to the coverage of Burgundy and U.S. Pinot Noir with biennial champagne reports.
www.Burghound.com was the first of its kind to offer specialized, and more importantly, exhaustive coverage of a specific wine region. The first issue was released in January 2001 and there are now readers in 54 different countries. Meadows spends five months a year in Burgundy and visits more than 300 domaines during that time. Allen's insights on Burgundy have become invaluable to wine professionals and collectors alike. His authoritative views on Burgundy are the reference standard in this highly complex and diverse region.
Anthony Bell
owner/winemaker, Bell Winery
Forks & Corks University Winemaker for a Day Blending Seminar
Anthony Bell believes in terroir, the French term encompassing all the factors that differentiate one vineyard from another: climate, soil and clonal selection. “Wine is grown in the vineyard,” explains Bell. “We are merely stewards of nature while the wine is in our cellar.”
Perhaps this belief comes from a life lived with wine, from his birth into a South African wine family through his youth at play among the vineyards. After completing his undergraduate viticultural degree at Stellenbosch University in South Africa and his Masters degree in enology at U.C. Davis, Anthony began a 15-year career at Beaulieu Vineyard, California’s royal house of Cabernet Sauvignon. During his innovative tenure as director of winemaking and later as general manager, he wrote the definition of the Carneros appellation conducted the now famous groundbreaking research into the differences and impact of clonal variations on Cabernet Sauvignon. In 1994, Anthony left Beaulieu Vineyard to pursue fulltime his passion for Cabernet Sauvignon at Bell Wine Cellars, with a mission of producing small quantities of hand crafted, vineyard expressive wines.
Gove Celio
winemaker, Neal Family Vineyards
Forks & Corks University Winemaker for a Day Panelist
Gove is a fifth-generation Californian. When he was a teenager, the Celio family bought his father a home winemaking kit. What began as a hobby quickly developed into a great passion. Gove's love of the winemaking process began at his family's home in Cupertino where he also learned organic gardening, the value of composting and bee keeping. The Celio family would pick Mission grapes and crush them in the garage (an original garagista!), experimenting with flavors and reveling in the winemaking process.
In the late 1970s, interest in revitalizing the wine industry in the Sierra foothills renewed Gove's passion for winemaking and prompted him to go back to school to study viticulture. He began his vineyard studies at Santa Rosa Junior College in 1981, and by October of that year had his first vineyard job in Kenwood. His energy and passion allowed him to concurrently manage several Sonoma Valley vineyard properties, continue home winemaking with his father, who now had access to premium quality grapes, and pursue his studies.
After five years in the Sonoma Valley, Gove moved to Howell Mountain as viticulturist for Liparita Vineyard and Cellars. It was there that his relationship with the Neal Family began to develop. For 12 years Gove worked closely with consulting winemaker Merry Edwards, and he eventually assumed the winemaking duties as the vineyard's production grew. When Gove found himself in need of new fruit sources, he obtained ultra-premium winegrapes from vineyards under the management of Jack Neal and Son Vineyard Management. Gove has now brought his winemaking expertise to Neal Family Vineyards, where he also makes use of his extensive viticultural skills working side-by-side with Mark Neal in the vineyards.
Jenny Williamson Doré
winemaker, Foxen
Forks & Corks University Winemaker for a Day Panelist
Jenny has been involved in the Santa Barbara County wine industry for nearly 20 years in public relations, marketing and sales. In 2001, she decided to step back from her position as the director of sales and marketing for Cambria Winery to devote her full time and energy to Foxen’s marketing and California and Florida wine sales.
Jenny and her husband Dick are settled in the Santa Ynez Valley where they enjoy life as vineyard owners and new “empty-nesters,” now that her youngest is away at college. When she’s not out selling Foxen wines in Florida or California, or volunteering as a board member of World of Pinot Noir, Jenny can be found in the Williamson-Doré Vineyard looking for pesky gophers.
Kristine Nickel
Style Magazine food & wine editor
Forks & Corks University Winemaker for a Day Moderator
In her "day job," Kristine Nickel is the CEO of Nickel & Nickel Communications, a public relations and marketing communications agency. This is the latest chapter in a career that includes intervals in communications, sales and marketing at Fortune 100 companies – PepsiCo, Johnson & Johnson and Kimberly-Clark – as well as not-for-profit health care concerns. Kristine's other passion is food, wine and travel and she relishes the role of food and wine editor of Style Magazine, a New York Times publication. She has a rich history of enjoying food and wine, beginning in 1983 when she became the wine columnist for the Chicago Tribune, writing the weekly Grapevine – an internationally syndicated column. She moved to Sarasota in 1990 and shortly thereafter began reviewing restaurants for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and Sarasota Magazine. She also assumed responsibility for the Gulf Coast Florida Zagat book for three years. Kristine dotes on her Australian Shepherds - Kayla, Liberty and Puppet - and husband Jack (but not necessarily in that order!).
Diane De Puymorin
owner, Domaine Petite Cassagne and Chateau d’Or et de Gueules
Forks & Corks University Winemaker for a Day Panelist
Diane de Puymorin was born the Southwest of France. “As a kid, I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up,” she explains, “but I always knew that I was drawn to the earth as a life symbol.” Diane graduated from the renowned National Institute of Agronomic Studies (Agro Paris) in 1988 and got married a year later. In 1990, she took on her first job in Bangkok, importing food product for the Casino group. This career ended five years later when Diane and her husband decided to settle in their native France and begin their family.
After two years of research, the family decided to invest in 70 hectares of vines in the Costières de Nîmes region. Diane recognized the potential that lay in the cailloux soils of Domaine de la Petite Cassagne. It was there that she established her plan: “to extract the true terroir from these soils to produce personalized wines at reasonable prices.”
Starting from scratch, Diane knew that her ultimate success was up to her. During her year-long oenology and viticulture studies in Montpellier, she cultivated her personal winemaking style. Following her divorce in 1999, Diane buried herself in her work for seven long years, during which she restructured her vineyard. Capitalizing on the fact that the Domaine had no past, she was able to impose her own style, and she renamed the property “Chateau d’Or et de Gueules” after her family’s crest.
Diane’s second husband, Mathieu Chatain, has followed her wholeheartedly in her endeavors. Today, Diane splits her busy schedule between the cellar, harvesting and winemaking, and handling the Domain’s business management. She also strives to improve the image of the Costières de Nimes wines throughout the world as an active member of local organizations.
Lindsay Stanley
owner/winemaker, Stanley Lambert Wines
Forks & Corks University Winemaker for a Day Panelist
“Wine is a product of a winemaker’s creativity, passion and courage” is how Lindsay Stanley would define it. Lindsay has been making award winning wine in the time honored tradition of the Barossa Valley for over 30 years. As a professional winemaker, he has applied many techniques and methods gained through his many years of experience. The result is the creation of honest, fine wine.
Lindsay’s courage to commit to hands-on winemaking challenges big wine producers and affords a wine-enjoying experience to trust in. No shortcuts are taken. Patient maturation in oak over time, always revered but rarely fulfilled, is just one process of Lindsay’s proud winemaking approach. The Thoroughbred Cabernet Sauvignon, Nordic Frost Riesling and Family Tree Shiraz are fine examples of honest wine, maintaining full integrity and acclaimed value.
One of Lindsay Stanley’s quotes reflects his thoughts on drinking fine, quality wine: “The moment may be temporary, but the memory is forever.” To be different is more valued than sameness. Many winemakers love to play with their “toys” – put the wine through a centrifuge, spin the solids out, push it through the earth filter, give it a bit of a polish, pass it through a pad filter, and make it squeaky clean. At Stanley Lambert, wines see a filter only when it’s on the way to the bottle. In this way wines are produced with more than one dimension – wines with backbone, flavor and mouth feel.
Mario Bollag
owner, Terralsole
Forks & Corks University Winemaker for a Day Panelist
Mario Bollag acquired and built Terralsole from the ground up in 1996, purchasing two distinctively different parcels of land in the Brunello di Montalcino growing district. Two terroirs exist on the cooler, well-ventilated Pian Bossolino parcel (contiguous to the winery, high on the southeastern slope behind Biondi Santi) and one terroir at Vigna Fonte Lattaia, which is lower in altitude, on the southwestern slopes bordering the road that links the Romanesque Abbey of S. Antimo to the hamlet of S. Angelo in Colle. As the local and international debates rage on about defining terroirs in Montalcino, Mario Bollag has adhered to his principles and artistic vision. That vision over twenty years ago led him to the conclusion that different terroirs exist on the mountain and to establish them is to give him a broader more colorful palette from which to work his non-formulaic method in the vineyard and cellar. His first wine was the 2000 Brunello di Montalcino.