People: Week of Sept. 1, 2014

Hess Family Wine Estates has appointed Breanna Burgess as Central Division Field Sales Manager, based in Denver and focused on six key states including Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. For the past five years she has served as an on-premise specialist for Beverage Distributors Corporation, focusing on Denver and the surrounding area.  She began her career at Xstatic Public Relations, where she created social media campaigns and produced vlogs for client websites. A graduate of Colorado State University, Burgess earned a Bachelor’s degree with a concentration in Technical Communications and Journalism, with a concentration in Public Relations. Hess Family Wine Estates produces terroir driven wines on four continents, including the wines of The Hess Collection from Mount Veeder in Napa, California; Artezin, from California’s North Coast; MacPhail Family Wines with Pinot Noir expressions from California’s greatest coastal growing regions; Peter Lehmann wines from Australia’s Barossa Valley; Colome and Amalaya from the Calchaquí Valley near Salta, Argentina and Glen Carlou from Paarl, South Africa.

[caption id="attachment_97646" align="alignright" width="211"] Andres Faustinelli[/caption]

The Other Guys (TOG), a family-owned wine company based in Sonoma, has recently increased personnel, bolstering the team with development, marketing and sales expertise with the addition of six experienced professionals in 2014. Andres Faustinelli was appointed as the Director of Procurement who will lead sourcing strategy and relationship development for The Other Guys as well as their craft spirits division, 35 Maple Street Spirits. Mr. Faustinelli brings  global procurement and category management experience from companies such as Diageo and The Clorox Company. He most recently worked as a Category Manager in the whiskey and spirits sector for Diageo N.A. His prior experience includes extensive procurement and supply work across North America, as well as South America. He is a graduate of the Universitá Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (Milan, Italy). Ryan Wycoff, named Marketing Manager, brings nine years of increasingly complex food and beverage consumable product experience in brand strategy, sales management, trade and consumer marketing, product creation and package development. Mr. Wycoff, a graduate of Sonoma State University, is overseeing the marketing directives of the wine and spirits portfolios. To support the sales and marketing efforts of The Other Guys, Madelon Christiaanse was hired as Marketing Coordinator, who brings cross-functional experience from the performing arts and health fields. Chris Potter joined the team as the Northeast Market Manager, responsible for management of market, distributor and chain sales for The Other Guys in the Northeastern United States. Potter, a graduate of State University of New York at Albany, has worked in both on-premise and off-premise sales and management roles. The western United States sales division has also grown with the addition of new Northern California District Manager Rich Moreno, a California Culinary Academy graduate who brings more than twenty years of hospitality, marketing, high-tech and fine wine sales experience focused entirely within Northern California.  In addition, Lydia Ogden was hired as the new Accounting Administrator, supporting the finance and accounting department with day-to-day operations.

V2 Wine Group of Sonoma

[caption id="attachment_97647" align="alignleft" width="230"] Taylor Craft[/caption]

has announced the appointment of wine industry veteran Taylor Craft as Division Vice President, West.  Mr. Taylor, who has 25 years of wine experience, joins V2 Wine Group in this newly created key management position. He will report to Scott Ericson, Senior Vice President of National Sales. Mr. Taylor began his career with the Gallo Sales Company in Northern California and Hawaii where he advanced from distributor sales representative to several management positions.  In 1999 he joined Brown Forman Wines where he held numerous management positions in California, Nevada, and Utah.  In 2005 Taylor joined Foster’s Wine Estates as a Regional Manager in Northern California.  Since 2010 he has been with Don Sebastiani & Sons where he held roles as Western Region Manager and Director of National Accounts. Taylor will be responsible for the 13 Western States (California, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Idaho and Hawaii) and will oversee the Region Managers in this division. V2 Wine Group is a wine producer and provides sales and marketing services to family owned wineries.

Benovia Winery has announced the addition of Jeff Shaeffer to the Benovia team as the Russian River Valley winery's new Direct To Consumer Sales Manager. In the position, he will have a hand in all aspects of Benovia's direct-to-consumer business. He will oversee the winery's online sales and Tasting Room business, organize special sales events, and develop marketing strategies to help more wine lovers discover Benovia's award-winning Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Zinfandel wines. A California native, he graduated from Dos Palos High School and attended Fresno State University where he earned a BA in Liberal Studies. His first job in the wine industry was in Australia, where he worked for six months in 1989 as a production assistant for an upstart winery in the Barossa Valley wine region near Adelaide. Upon returning to the States, he started his own imported wine business in 2006, introducing a number of Australian and Argentina wines from small producers to the US market. That same year, he also joined Siduri Wines and Novy Family Winery as a Production Assistant, and, later, Retails Sales Associate, Tasting Room Manager, and most recently, Siduri's Sales and Hospitality Manager, while continuing to run his wine import business. During his tenure at Siduri, he established a wine club, directed the winery's hospitality program and staff, and managed some of Siduri's wholesale markets.

[caption id="attachment_97649" align="alignleft" width="224"] Thrace Bromberger[/caption]

WALT Wines, producer of  premiere Pinot Noir wines,  has added Thrace Bromberger as tasting room manager at its Sonoma facility. Ms. Bromberger will be responsible for developing the continued growth of WALT Wines, a sister winery to HALL Wines. The WALT portfolio of pinot noir and chardonnay, sourced from top coastal vineyards in California and Oregon, has been praised by many of the wine industry’s top critics and professionals. Prior to joining WALT Wines, he was the co-owner of boutique Napa winery GustavoThrace from 1996 to 2012, and later tasting room manager at both Villa San-Juliette in San Miguel and Charles Creek in Sonoma, respectively. Ms. Bromberger completed numerous viticulture and marketing courses at University of California, Davis, and has multiple degrees including a bachelor of arts in political science from University of Maryland, master of science in small business management from Troy University and a juris doctorate from Pepperdine University.