For the Love of Wine

In the early 1980s, Greg Brown was zooming on the career fast track. After graduating from Chico State in 1981 with a B.S. in business administration/finance, he was scooped up by Bank of America in San Francisco, where he quickly became a vice president. But after a few years, Brown escaped the corporate world and took a job earning seven bucks an hour as a “cellar rat” in Napa Valley, dragging hoses around wine cellars, filling barrels, and blending wines.

What inspired him? Or, as some of his banker buddies may have asked, what in the world possessed him? “I didn’t love pure finance,” Brown says simply. “Plus, my fear of failure was a lot less than my fear of stagnation.”

For several years Brown learned the art—and business—of winemaking by working at small wineries. In 1992, Brown started the T-Vine Cellars label in Calistoga, California, with $15,000 in capital, his hard-earned knowledge of wine, and a lot of moxie.

“I made the leap of faith of not having any money, but a lot of passion and understanding of how to make wine,” says Brown. He says his background in finance has served him well. “The wine industry is incredibly capital intensive. You can’t walk into it without understanding what those demands are.”

Although T-Vine Cellars is set on 17 acres in Calistoga, Brown buys his grapes from expert growers, as do most vintners in Napa Valley. A one-man operation for nearly 10 years, Brown recently hired a cellar master, but he still sells most of his wine out of his van, delivering around the Napa Valley and Bay Area. His first vintage was a grenache, which is a Rhone-style wine and something of a maverick in Cabernet-happy Napa Valley. For the 2000 vintage, he will bottle 4,500 cases of nine different wines.

Brown was named 2000 Winemaker of the Year in the San Francisco Chronicle, by people who work intimately with wine. This honor is quite a coup for a guy who has no formal training in winemaking.

“I make wine because I am fascinated with it,” remarks Brown. He relishes working with nature. “That’s what is so cool about wine—you get to consume nature.”

Brown likes to give his customers a taste of his philosophy, by printing his thoughts on his wines’ back labels—for example: “Even during the best of times, life is better than it appears.”

Lisa Kirk, Public Affairs and Publications