Senior wine editor at Food & Wine magazine, Ray Isle writes the monthly "Tasting Room" column. In addition, he has a regular blog on Foodandwine.com by the same name. Formerly the managing editor of Wine & Spirits Magazine, his articles about wine, beer, food, and spirits have appeared in a wide range of publications including Food & Wine, Wine & Spirits, The Washington Post, Martha Stewart Living, and Gastronomica. He has also been nominated for a James Beard Award. He speaks regularly on wine and wine-related subjects at live events, and has been a guest on national media outlets including NBC's Today, Good Morning America, The View, CNBC, and NPR.

  
 

 
 

 

Violet’s passion for wine began at an early age, as she literally grew up accompanying her father in the vineyards and cellar. She spent her summers at the winery, doing everything from bottling line work to laboratory analysis and working in the tasting room.
 

Attending the University of California, Davis, Violet earned a BA in music while taking classes in biology, chemistry, and enology. After graduation, she returned home to Grgich Hills to continue her education in the wine business, learning about daily operations of the winery from Mike. She received her Master of Music in harpsichord at Indiana University, and then joined the winery full-time in 1988. She’s now responsible for daily management of the winery, as well as sales and marketing. She says that she has the ideal job: “I believe that wine is part of a healthy, happy and long life. Wine brings people together and makes them happy, which makes my job extraordinarily fulfilling.”
 

Involved with every aspect of the wine business, Violet enjoys wearing many different hats, often at the same time. She explains, “My dad insisted that in order to lead the winery I needed to work at every single position, starting at the bottom.” Violet continues to enjoy learning something new each day and following her grandfather’s and father’s philosophy of “Every day do something just a little better.”
 

Violet is pleased that the next generation has joined the winery: Noel Grgich Shipman, her son born in 2005, accompanies her on sales trips, and enjoys every minute of it.

  
 

 

Joy joined Appleton Jamaica Rum as Chief Chemist in 1981, and held a series of key positions including Product Development Manager, Technical Services Manager and Total Quality Manager before she was appointed General Manager, Technical and Quality Services in 1996, a position she still holds along with the position of Master Blender, which she took up in 1997.

Creating rum provides Joy with the perfect balance of art and science and she says that in rum-making they are so intricately intertwined that it is difficult to pinpoint where the science stops and the art begins.

She has created many rums, spirits and liqueurs for the Company, including Appleton Estate Extra Jamaica Rum - Appleton's super-premium blend and Appleton Estate Reserve Jamaica Rum - the newest addition to the Appleton Jamaica Rum family.
 
 

 

This Navarrese of birth and native of Alava of adoption, he is everything a show of commitment and good sense. He is one of the greater experts in vines of all the Rioja. Their practical sense together with their deep knowledge of the La Riojan vineyard has turned to Fernando Remírez de Ganuza obsessing by the quality, whose fundamental principle is to put the accent in the age of the vine and the pedigrí of the stock.
 

This brave and bold man, with talent in abundance whose condition "sine qua non" to obtain the Maxima quality of a product is transformed in an excellent raw material "the grape", takes to finery to have to his reach some of the best property of the denomination.
 

Capable, willful, meticulous and serious man has been able to devise a spectacular red, that with its sweeping quality, has been placed from its exit to the market in the crest of modern the named marks more of riojas.
 

Its novel philosophy is made notice in the subsector of Alava Rioja and every time has more followers between the warehouses of the region: "the exceptional quality is only obtained from a demanding selection". And Fernando Remírez de Ganuza is one of the leaders of this new conception that has revolutionized not only the culture of the grapevine, but also the way to elaborate wines that respond to the Maxima Biblical of which "many are the calls but few the chosen ones".
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Robert Sleigh 
Robert Sleigh joined the Sotheby's New York Wine Department in 1996. He is the senior wine expert in New York and the Head of the New York Wine Department, responsible for the daily management of the department and providing assistance to purchasers and consignors throughout North America wishing to buy and sell wines through Sotheby's. Educated in England, Sleigh worked in the London wine trade before moving to France's Burgundy region to learn wine making, and later to Maison Louis Latour, one of the region's most reputed negociants. 
 

As one of the four wine auctioneers in Sotheby's North America, Mr. Sleigh works both the commerical and charity auctions performed by Sotheby's. Mr. Sleigh has been responsible for the inspection and cataloguing of some of the most reputed cellars to come to auction at Sotheby's, including the Millennium Wine Cellar which sold in New York in November 1999.
 
 

 

Schloss Gobelsburg is the oldest winery in the Danube area Kamptal with a documented viticultural history dating back to the 12th century. In 1171 Cistercian monks from Burgundy received a small plot of land, which marked the beginning of a long tradition of wine production. Since its establishment the winery has been one of the leading producers in the region and throughout Schloss Gobelsburg has been run by Eva and Michael Moosbrugger  since 1996. Grüner Veltliner and Riesling are the winery’s most important varieties, as Michael is constantly looking to exploit their wide variety of expressive qualities and characteristics. Aside from the classic fruity and spicy wines, the winemaker’s primary focus is on the different types of soil, as reflected in single-variety wines which are produced. 
 
 
 

 

Laurent followed his father Jospeh Drouhin to the vineyards at a tender age, roller-skated in the cellars and played in the “cuverie”.  His fondest memory (à la Marcel Proust) is the smell of the macerating must. His first job after graduate school (Ecole Supérieure de Gestion in Paris) was with a bank. But he missed Burgundy and was eager to share his knowledge with other people. The change came in 1993 when he moved to Paris and became involved with sales for Drouhin. Two years later he became sales manager for the French capital, directing a team calling on restaurants, wine shops and individual collectors. Today, Laurent is the Drouhin ambassador to the United States and the Caribbean. Besides his commercial responsibilities, he is also involved in communication and other public relation activities such as tastings and wine dinners. In 2005, he decided to move to New York with his wife Béatrice and their two young children. His creative and active personality is an ideal match for the American life-style.  
 
 
 
John Lermayer
DIAGEO Reserve Brands Mixologist
John Lermayer has spent the better part of the last ten years as Miami’s top mixologist having begun his cocktail career at the renowned Shore Club.  The creativity and the success of his work there led to him being handpicked by designer Lenny Kravitz and Morgan Hotel Group to assist with the opening of The Florida Room, a speak-easy lounge in the Delano Hotel, as head bartender.  Over the past three years at The Florida Room, John Lermayer has garnered international acclaim, having created one of the most extensive and innovative cocktail menus in Miami using only the freshest ingredients, handcrafting cocktails to perfection.  
 

For the past two years John has served as DIAGEO Reserve Brands Mixologist. John has received much recognition and a number of awards and for the work he creates. In 2005, Lermayer won a regional cocktail competition and was chosen to represent Miami in the 42 Below Cocktail World Cup held in Queenstown, New Zealand.  In 2008, he was chosen by the founding members of BAR (Beverage Alcohol Resource) to receive the Chuck O'Conner Scholarship.  He was selected by celebrity bartending expert Dale Degroff to participate in the cocktail competition at the 2008 Tales of the Cocktail competition in New Orleans. He has won first place in the “Bar Chef Challenge”, Bols Cocktail Competition, The Hennesey Art of Mixing Contest, The 2009 Domain de Canton Bartender of the Year, and recently won the state of Florida in the Cherry Heering Cocktail and Fashion Competition. 
 

John has received national and international media attention having been named one of the Top Ten Hotel Bartenders in the world by Travel and Leisure Magazine. The Florida Room was featured in the Top Ten Cocktail Bars in the country by USA Today.  His creations and expertise have been published in Miami Herald, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, Beverage Journal, Ocean Drive, Where Magazine, USA Today, NY Post, Hamptons Magazine, and Imbibe!  John appears regularly on NBC 6 Miami’s “South Florida Today Show” and he has been featured on Fox News, MSNBC, and Mixing with Best with Grant Collins.


Peter Keller 
Polz winery and Peter Keller: "Sehr gut bleibt, was immer besser wird!" - applies analogously to "Best are those who want to gain the best" This guideline of the brothers Erich & Walter Polz is the highest principle of the vineyard which exists since 1912.  With a multitudinous amount of awards and top estimations, is Polz among the leading vine-growing estates in Austria. At the end of the 1980´s Erich & Walter Polz took over the vineyard of the parents and developed it to a grandeur of 70 ha. 
 
With the Grassnitzberg and the later acquired vine-yards on the Hochgrassnitzberg, Obegg and Theresienhöhe, the Polz brothers operate one of the prime lays in Styria. The predominant parts of the wine-yards are cultivated with the region- specific Sauvignon Blanc, Gelber Muskateller, Welschriesling and Morillon. Specialities such as the Traminer, Pinot Noir, the Zweigelt or the finesse varieties of the Cuvées, round the entire assortment.
 

The development of the wines is done in a differentiated way, while the lays of the "Steirische Klassik" have received a particular attention to fruitiness, freshness and a bright characteristic due to their maturing procedure in high grade steel tanks. The wines of the special vine-yards reach maturity, depending to their character and potential in big or small oak barrels.