I'm a food scientist who got tired of lab coats and spreadsheets.

Most wine importers are suits who've never stomped a grape. They speak distributor, not dirt. They want 10,000 cases of the same safe shit year after year.

I want the 400-bottle runs. The winemakers who said "fuck the AOC" and make what they actually believe in. The former lawyer in Sicily who's out there in a hot vineyard doing the work because it matters.

I spent years in labs, got my WSET III, then decided I'd rather get my hands dirty. I've rolled up my sleeves in Beaujolais. I've sat at tables with winemakers who serve you wine in juice glasses because that's all they've got, and it's the best thing you've ever tasted.

The wine world is full of gatekeepers and bullshit. Appellations designed to keep things safe. Distributors who want proven sellers. Critics who taste 100 wines before lunch and can't tell you what any of them actually meant.

I'm not interested in that game.

I'm interested in the guy who walked away from his career to make 200 cases of something nobody asked for. The wines that taste like the place they're from. The stories that matter.

My job is simple: find those people, bring their wine here, and get it in your glass. No middlemen. No bullshit. Just the good stuff.

- Marissa Gutoff
WSET III Certified, Food Science MS