After a stint at the UF School of Agriculture, while farming organic, high-bush blueberries in Gainesville, FL, I fell into the wine business totally by chance in 1999. After seeing the amazing diversity of products made around the world from fermented grapes, I quickly left the farm and joined a small retail chain called Wine Warehouse. I spent the next ten years learning to taste, buy and sell wine to the public. Through these years of customer service I was able to expand my knowledge of wine while learning to listen to the people and have open, judgement free conversations about their individual taste...a very personal subject. I left Florida for the cooler climate of Halifax, Nova Scotia (my wife's hometown) and worked with Bishop's Cellar, an independent fine wine retailer located in downtown. During my second winter as a Floridian stranded in Maritime Canada, Bruce Neyers of Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant called and asked if I would like to join their team running sales in the Southeast. I jumped at the chance to work with arguably the most iconic French wine importer in the US and get myself back to the sub-tropics all in one move. I have been with Kermit for eight years now and like most of the team, cannot see myself ever leaving.