about Sean

Sean has a Master of Science degree in Geographic and Cartographic Sciences and is therefore fascinated by the concept of terroir. He started his marketing career with geo-targeting and geo-demographics when those fields were in their infancy. He helped a wide variety of clients apply those concepts while at an analytics company that was later acquired by Nielsen. After several positions in consumer marketing analysis for telecom companies, he became the Director of Data Strategy at Butler, Shine & Stern advertising agency in Sausalito. There, he worked with several winery clients. Sean then dove fully into Direct-to-Consumer (DtC) wine marketing in 2004 and launched or led that channel at Etude Wines, Soter Vineyards, and Benziger. He consults with a wide range of wineries from larger family-owned operations like Trefethen and Frank Family Vineyards to small cult Napa Valley producers.

Living on the shoulders of Mount Tamalpais in Mill Valley, Sean is a trail runner and has completed fifteen consecutive Dipsea races - the oldest trail race in the United States. He also enjoys visiting old world wine regions, especially those in Spain and France. His favorite destination is the Côte de Nuits in Burgundy. "There is nothing like a morning run through the historic vineyards of Romanée-Conti."