One of my favorite things about the wine industry is the people in it. Especially in the U.S., where there are fewer generationally run family domaines than, say, Europe, nearly everyone seems to have a fascinating story to tell about how they got here. Many an unused liberal arts degree went into the making of wine industry folks, who followed their passion and found themselves immeshed in the world of wine.

Our staff members are no exception. They’re a fascinating lot, and each has meandered one way or another through interesting experiences until they’ve gotten to us. So here goes our new series: Meet the Staff, in which we’ll ask them about their journeys and take you along for the ride. First up, Ryan Woodhouse, Domestic Buyer Extraordinaire.

Ryan’s pride and joy scooter "The Bug" from his Santa Cruz days.

KS: How did you get into the wine business?

RW: I worked in a "gastro pub" restaurant in high school as a server. The owner was ex-Savoy Hotel in London and had some wine knowledge, which in turn got me interested. Later during grad school, I needed money for bills... so I got a part-time job at a small, but excellent wine shop in Wales called Mumbles Fine Wines.

The owner of the shop was also the owner of a château in the upper Medoc, Château Rousseau de Sipian, and imported his own wines among other things. What started as a 16-hour-a-week thing took me down the rabbit hole!

One of my enduring memories from Mumbles Fine wines was sitting in front of the jewel rack case with a copy of Michael Broadbent’s "Vintage Wine," looking up all the bottles I saw in the cabinet and reading about the vintages and properties. I also studied WSET level 1 and 2 while I was there.

KS: Wine is definitely a rabbit hole. What did you study in grad school?

RW: I studied Modern History in Undergrad and got an International Relations MA.

KS: I guess there’s some relevance to wine there...

RW: Yeah, I use my critical thinking skills every day!

KS: How did you know you wanted to pursue wine and not international relations? What was it about the wine bug bit you so hard?

RW: Well... after my MA I was pretty burnt out on studying. My thesis was focused on ethnic- and identity-driven violence, not a light topic, and I was just unsure if I wanted to continue or not. I was offered a fully funded PhD but turned it down. Got married... and moved to WY!

KS: Wow! You turned down a fully funded program? You moved to Wyoming?!

RW: From WY... packed up my wife's Jeep... headed for Santa Cruz, CA (we had visited a couple summers before and liked it). We had no jobs, no where to live, our wordly possesions in the jeep. We had been emailing with this guy on Craigslist about a studio apartment on Pleasure Point, and he agreed to rent it to us. When we got to Santa Cruz two days later he ghosted us at the appartment. We stayed in this dive of a motel... then on some friend’s (whom we barely knew at the time) couch for five days until we found another studio to rent.

Ryan at Uluwatu in Bali, Indonesia (in the good old days!).

At this point I had no work permit...so I just surfed all day. My wife worked at the Billabong surf shop. We sold the jeep to pay rent...and only had bicycles and skateboards for six months until we bought a scooter. I became friends with Peter, the owner at the time of Pleasure Point Wines on the east side of Santa Cruz. He said the day my work permit came I had a job.

A few weeks later it did. So I went to work for him. Despite his passion for wine, especially local stuff... fine wine just gathered dust in that place... we sold a lot more beer and peppermint schnapps!

KS: LOL. As an alum of UC Santa Cruz, I’m not surprised.

RW: But... it did get me into the local Santa Cruz Mountains wine scene. I got to attend industry tastings and got to know some local winemakers etc. Then... I got a job working for Randall Grahm at Bonny Doon Vineyard.

KS: This must have been sort of at the beginning of it being a "scene" in Santa Cruz, right?

RW: At that time, it was mostly the old crew of wineries, not much of the cool new scene we see today.

RW: I started in the old tasting room up on the mountain in Bonny Doon itself, them moved down to run the big new tasting room and restaurant for two years.

KS: Did you get to work with Randall Grahm much?

RW: Yeah, worked with him very closely. I also reppresented the winery at quite a few events up a down the coast. I helped Randall plant the first Pinot Noir vines out at his Popelouchum vineyard and farm in San Juan Bautista.

After a few years there... I was essentially running the front of house of the restaurant and the private events program... planning weddings and corporate evens for Apple, Boeing etc... I was so detached from why I got into the wine biz... so I left and went to work in the cellar at Testarossa Winery in Los Gatos. That was where I really got my teeth into the production side of things.

KS: Did you plan to go into winemaking?

RW: I didn't really plan to be a winemaker. I just really wanted to know that side of the business to help my understanding of wine in general. So... after 7 months in the cellar... I left... and then my wife and I sold everything we had and went off around the world for 11 months.

KS: Amazing!

RW: Basically it was 11 months of wine and surf travel. Several months in New Zealand and Australia, and we visited literally hundreds of wineries. Then all through Southeast Asia. Then on to South Africa for 6 weeks. Then Italy, France, UK, and back to CA. So that trip was what really got me into NZ/Aussie wines.

Exploring Central Otago, NZ. Rippon Vineyard.

KS: Sounds utterly epic. So, how'd you end up on the retail side?

RW: When we came home, with nothing... I actually dug through my old AOL email and found correspondance with K&L’s HR Manager Cindy Westby from back when were planning to drive from Wyoming out to California... and I follwed up with her on the now four-year-old thread! She asked me to come for an interview that week!

I had to borrow a friends car to drive over Highway 17 from Santa Cruz to have my interview with Cindy and General Manager Jason Marwedel. They offered me a sales floor position... and I started at K&L on 11/11/11!

My passion and interest in the NZ/Aussie/South African wines led me to work closely with Jim Chanteloup, who was a longtime K&L Buyer at the time. He kinda took me under his wing. As he started to look toward retirement, I slowly graduated into the buying role, first as Co-Buyer then as the full Buyer. Built the NZ/Aussie Direct Import portfolio. Then I took over Germany, Austria, and Alsace...alongside NZ, Oz, South Africa. Then took over Domestic buying in late 2017.

You never know what you might find in Margaret River wine county in Western Australia.

KS: I love that there's travel, adventure, and following your heart in the story. It has it all!

So was there a bottle of wine at the heart of all this? An "epiphany" bottle?

RW: Yes... so epiphany bottle(s)

Back in 2002 or 2003... honestly don't remember which... I went with my girlfriend at the time, and her family, to France. We stayed in this epic guest house in the Dordogne. One of her uncles that was on the trip worked for Carlsberg/Tetley beer company in London and had an interest in wine. So he took us wine tasting for the day in St-Emilion. I have no idea to this day what property we were at (it was this underground cellar right in the heart of the town itself), and we tasted a few things from the late 90s... I think 1997/98.

Then her uncle said, can we please taste a 1995 because he had heard all the great reports about the vintage. The vigneron, somewhat reluctantly, opened a 1995, and we tasted it. And BOOM... right there I went from thinking all this "Oh it's a fine vintage for Right Bank wines" was utter pompous nonsense to truly seeing the difference a great vintage could make. It really hit home that growing conditions and grape quality are reflected so definitively in the finished wines. That was the first time I really saw place and season reflected in a wine

KS: That sounds like an amazing context for this epiphany to happen in.

RW: Yeah it was cool. I remember it very vividly to this day.

KS: So, after all these years, what do you like to drink at home?

RW: Crisp, cold, Pilsner. Wine wise... I tend to drink a lot of dry, crisp whites. I love Sauv Blanc, or racier Chardonnay. Love dry rose. For reds, I drink Pinot Noir much more than any other varietal. I love Grenache and Cinsault too. I'm brett phobic, so I don't like those types of wines!

KS: How do you like working with the Domestic category, esp after buying for so many different categories over the years?

RW: I love working with Domestic. Honestly I work very very hard to be super open-minded to whatever wine is in my glass. I try not to get caught up in preconceptions, especially those based on where the wine is from.

Just about every grape growing region can make beautiful wines and really terrible wines. I don't believe anywhere in particular has any innate advantage to make fantastic wines. Obviously climate, soils, etc., all play a roll... but I don't buy into the “if it's Burgundy it must be good” type of nonsense.

KS: How about desert island wines or your ultimate wine destination?

Desert Island wines... that's tough... I really don't like drinking the same wines over and over... I love the variety that wine offers... but I'd say... right now... Hirsch San Andreas Pinot Noir. I love that wine year after year. Massican Sauv Blanc. Some dry rosé, maybe Grenache/Cinsault/Mourvedre–based... maybe Pinot rosé.

KS: Any wine dreams to fulfill in the future? Anything we missed about your wine journey? What do you do when you're not wining?

RW: Dreams to fulfill... wow I don't know...keep learning...be humble about what I understand in wine and what I don't and never will. Lots of folks really want to "know wine"... to understand it, box it up. I'm super happy being surprised each year and being totally wrong about something I thought I "got."

I got to do some picking this year up at Peter Martin Ray vineyard... that was cool. I really have no desire to make wine professionally... but I like to "get my hands dirty" just for the learning experience. I love to walk vineyards and learn from the people who farm them and make wine from them

When I'm not "wining" I'm wrangling my three awesome kids! Coaching T-Ball... swimming, spending time at the beach. The ocean is super special for me... my happy place.

Ryan and his daughter Seren (2yrs) at Carmel Beach this Spring.

- Kate Soto, Social Media Manager and Blogger

Meet the Staff Series: Ryan Woodhouse Edition

K&L Wine Merchants

www.klwines.com