Greetings wine enthusiasts near and far, I’m “MJ” from Marin County, CA (by the Golden Gate Bridge and not far from Sonoma and Napa wine country). I was raised in 1970’s New England with parents who often shared a sip of Mateus with Sunday dinner, and attended college during those horrible Riunite and Bartles & James years in the 80’s!

I was introduced and fell in love with wine country travel and tasting fine wines after moving to NorCal nearly 4 decades ago. Through those experiences, I became a long-time wine afficionado and collector who eventually started amassing a large library of wine books and taking many diverse wine classes to taste bottlings from around the world. I hold a number of wine certs with the most valuable being WSET-L2 and L3, CA Wine Appellation Specialist, and NV Wine Expert.

I am a WSET-certified instructor and formerly Director of Sales and Marketing for a wine education company based in SF during the 2010’s. Currently employed as a non-profit executive, but I continue to do some consulting work for local auctions, casual wine education programs in your home, office or clubhouse, and wine country travel guiding throughout California and Oregon. I also joined the Wine Scholar’s Guild at the start of the pandemic due to the great online resources and instructional programs available.

Drink memorable wines of great diversity regularly from around the world, with my faves being the Rhone region of France and more locally the Central Coast of CA from the Santa Lucia Highlands near Monterey south to the Edna Valley / Santa Maria Valley / Foxen Canyon / Santa Rita Hills / Santa Ynez Valley north of Santa Barbara. I was recently introduced to the WineBerserkers online community, so cheers to everyone here seeking to improve our discerning palates, wine appreciation and knowledge!