The Big Wine Hustle.

My dad has an infectious interest in wine. He graciously (and cautiously) cultivated my palate from the moment I was old enough to appreciate it. Fast-forward to 2020: Colin McNany, head winemaker for a well-known Santa Cruz Mountains label, is living in the apartment downstairs from me as he starts up his personal label, Marbeso Wines. Over many pandemic-lockdown-bubble bottles, we became close friends. That November, I helped Colin out in his cellar during harvest. Two things resulted:

First, I almost immediately became Marbeso’s ad-hoc marketing consultant. And by 2023, I had two barrels of my own wine in the Marbeso stack. I call my own label Alta Sueños – simultaneously a nod to Alta California’s viticultural history, and a butchered translation of an Ice Cube lyric. From grape crushing to graphic design, I do everything that makes Alta Sueños exist. It’s a labor of love that also happens to keep my hands-on agency skills sharp. Website CMS, CSS, Creative Cloud, DTC, online POS, Social, CRM – if I don’t already know it, I learn it. For this hustle, that also includes college-level microbiology. I do this because for me, making is oxygen.