Days of Wine and Business

I'm the founder and principal of Your Personal Sommelier, a wine-consulting company which offers personalized wine services to individuals and businesses in San Francisco and Los Angeles. These services include wine tastings, cellar management, and personal wine shopping. In an effort to target the growing number of young, urban wine drinkers, I recently founded HIP TASTES Events, a special-events firm through which I offer stylish wine tastings to the general public in San Francisco.

As sole proprietor, my current job responsibilities encompass everything from sourcing new business and forging partnerships to servicing client needs and overseeing marketing and advertising. I'm my own IT staff, marketing guru, accounting staff, and operations manager.

GRAPE ADVENTURES.  The second year of business school at the UCLA Anderson School of Management was a great opportunity for me to immerse myself in the study of wine on the weekends and take an intensive six-month-long sommelier certification course (see BW Online, 2/15/06, "A Vintage Crop of MBAs"). I was president of the Anderson Wine Club and had already taken some preliminary courses with the International Sommelier Guild, a wine-education organization.

I passed the rigorous sommelier exam and officially launched Your Personal Sommelier in September, 2005, and HIP TASTES Events in January, 2006. Eight months into it all, I'm still having a blast. I really enjoy working with corporate and individual clients, many of whom are working professionals interested in learning more about wine in the comfort of their own homes. Between visiting clients in their homes or offices to talk about wine, hosting events for adventurous wine drinkers, and writing about it, I'm rarely far from a good glass of Pinot Noir.

Every workday is different, but here is a snapshot of a typical one:

9:00 a.m. -- I usually wake up around 9:00 a.m., a little later than most folks, but since I often work until midnight and don't have a commute, I allow myself the luxury of an extra hour of sleep. It's one of the perks of running my own business and working from home.

9:30 a.m. -- By now, I've checked all my e-mail and decided if it's prudent to stop for breakfast. E-mails come in from current and prospective clients as well as wine-trade-related entities -- which send updates on the wine press, invitations to attend culinary and wine events, and business inquiries. If I'm lucky, I...

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