Origin

Reyes Selections is a small portfolio carefully selected from rekindled relationships established during my years as wine director for a white-label company that managed national programs such as The New York Times Wine Club and Williams Sonoma Wine, among others. These are small wineries, usually family-owned, that strive to be good stewards of their own land while making delicious wine. After spending many years buying their offerings and sharing their stories, I considered many of the families and winemakers genuine friends.

Transition

When GWC sold its assets and closed in 2016, I was deeply saddened since the USA market presence for most of these small wineries had existed through our efforts. Furthermore, I didn’t think I’d ever see them again, aside from the occasional social media and well-wishes. Without a clear path in my career, I naively accepted a production and GM role with Peter Paul since I had “worked a harvest” at Salomon Undhof the year prior. While I still make wines today for a small virtual Sonoma-based winery, in 2018 I jumped at the chance to work with the best of my international friends again, when Reyes Selections was launched with the help of Pennsylvania-based Pip Imports & Domestics. 

Reunion

Reyes Selections’s story is unique because it’s vetting process was accidental and thorough. Accidental because unbeknownst to me, working with these wineries at GWC was inadvertently building concomitant research for this future, self-owned portfolio. Thorough because it represents the distilled results of a broad, multiple-year “funnel” that began with hundreds of brands tasted, from which dozens of wines were bought, with only a handful of deep friendships developed that became the one or two wineries within a specific region. In other words, I didn’t go “looking for a Minervois because we needed a Minervois.” Each winery represents endless, bygone hours of work & commerce over seven years that led to a rekindled selection of story-filled, bullet-proof quality wines made by awesome people I thoroughly enjoyed working with in the past. These are my friends, just as much as they are my producers.