20 most admired people in North American Wine industry

(VWM) - You may have noticed that this is not a list of the most “powerful” or “influential” people in the wine business. There have been plenty of those lists over the years, and we didn’t feel we needed to reinvent that wheel. Instead, we thought it would be interesting to take a subtly different approach and ask: Who are the industry’s most admired people?

The word “admire,” according to the online Mer - riam-Webster Dictionary, means to feel respect or approval for someone or something. Despite this seemingly clear definition, admiration is a tricky thing to pin down. While we often admire successful people, those we admire most aren’t always the ones at the top of the heap. Sometimes we admire a person for his or her tenacity, or principles, or humanity. Admiration cannot be measured in the number of cases sold, or profits made.

To help compile our list we solicited the input of a judging panel consisting of winemakers, grapegrow - ers, wine writers, educators, buyers, sommeliers and consultants throughout North America – an admirable group in itself – and asked panelists for nominations, not only within their own professional categories, but also beyond. The only rules were that the nominees must be living, and based in North America. The result - ing list of nearly 200 nominees was narrowed down to 50 finalists, based on the number of nominations they received, and submitted to the panel for voting. Panel - ists could vote for as many nominees as they liked.

When the final votes were tallied, the results revealed a fascinating variety of award-winners – diverse in their backgrounds and accomplishments, but all worthy of recognition. You’ll see many names you recognize among the profiles that follow, but it’s just as likely that you’ll come across a few you’ve never heard of.

Because the race was such a close one, no single person received significantly more votes than the oth - ers. Therefore, we chose not to rank the winners, but to present them as equals, in alphabetical order