Publisher's Synopsis
The impetus for this book was sparked one night around 2010 when sharing some wine with Justin Cherno at the Lower East Side wine bar Ten Bells. He asked me how I got into the wine business and started Moonlight Wine Co. After I explained the story, he responded by saying it had the makings of a book. I hadn't considered doing it much until living in Buenos Aires in 2020 when a friend there encouraged me to write it. Three years later while spending a summer in Marseille, I finally put the pen to paper and this is the result.
This is not a book about wine. It's about the wine business and, more specifically, my journey into and out of it. Oftentimes when I would mention to someone outside the industry that I was a wine importer they responded by saying what a wonderful job I had. Part of this tale is about how selling wine is a grind just like most any other job. There are good times as well as the struggles necessary to succeed. I don't think my experience as an importer differs greatly from most small importers or distributors or, for that matter, most small business owners in general. I spent over a dozen years in the business and of these it's probably the first five where my story differs from others. More than 75 percent of my time in the business was spent running Moonlight Wine Co. Perhaps two-thirds of this book covers my time getting into the wine trade and working for others. I think that's where my story has something particular since I came to it as a complete outsider with no connections in the trade. Just a couple years prior to getting my first job selling wine I graduated law school and was set to become a lawyer in order to raise my own funding to start a gelateria. I've heard numerous wine enthusiasts griping about their jobs asking how they can enter the wine business because they like wine so much that they think they will find a more fulfilling career in it. Perhaps. My guess is probably not. Sometimes it's best to keep hobbies separate from professions.
