MICHAEL LAVENSON, SALES AND MARKETING

Michael Lavenson's 35 years of passion for serving, selling, marketing and distributing fine wine has kept him involved in every aspectof the wine business.

In 1972 after a College abroad program, Michael started working at a restaurant in Dublin, Ireland as a cook and then as manager. He got his first taste of European wines there where he was involved in bottling and selling wines in Dublin's busiest restaurant.

Michael caught the wine-tasting bug and was constantly discovering new varietals and appellations. This led him to seek out and learn about California wines. During the late 70's, 80's and into the 90's Michael worked in various cities along the east coast and broadened his experience in retail and fine dining. He was particularly proud of opening The Carlton Wine Bar, one of the first premium American wine bars. With the help of Hugh Johnson's World Atlas of Wine along with the Washington DC chapter of the Sommelier Society he had made his hobby a full time profession. Michael established a place for people to learn about fine wine as the Director of the American Academy of Wine in Washington DC.

Later, after spending five years working in fine wine distribution in DC, Michael helped to build one of the most successful wine brands in the finest restaurants and stores in America. From 1988 to 2005, Michael worked for Sonoma-Cutrer starting as the northeast regional sales manager. During this time Michael moved his family to California to become Sonoma-Cutrer's National Sales Manager. It was at this time that he met Peter Nevin and began working with Nevin on refining Sonoma-Cutrer's Sales databases. When Brown-Forman acquired Sonoma-Cutrer, Michael became the General Manager of the winery.

Michael has always been passionate about finding creative ways to sell wine. Most recently, Michael spent three years at The Henry Wine Group, one of the top fine wine distributors in America, as the National Sales Manager.

This wealth of experience has provided Michael with a unique set of talents to assist wineries in their efforts to successfully establish distribution in multiple channels. As a National Sales Manager for a winery and then a distributor, this experience has given him the unique background to help meet the challenges on both sides of the desk.

He is particularly excited about bringing those talents to DeVineWare. Michael's desire is to help build a winery client base that is trying to establish their brands in a crowded market with a challenging economy. Michael believes that information is the key to success with marketing, selling and brand building. His long term working relationship with Peter Nevin, will give him the spring board for providing a product and service that many winery's will no doubt find invaluable to help them get where they want to go and to keep them there. "With Peter's vision, customized software programs, and the abilities of the DeVineWare team that he has assembled - I don't see any better alternatives for wineries that want to be in charge of managing all channels of their business," says Michael.

Peter Nevin, Founder | Our Company