Somerston Wine Company Hires Kathleen Meek as National Sales Manager

Craig Becker, part owner, winemaker and general manager of Somerston Wine Company, announced today that Kathleen Meek has joined the Somerston Wine Company team as National Sales Manager. The addition of a dedicated National Sales Manager marks another expansion in Somerston Wine Company’s multi phase rollout.

Meek was most recently Division Manager West of Banville & Jones Wine Merchants. She previously held positions as Director of Sales and Marketing for Spring Mountain Vineyard and National Sales Manager for Cain Vineyard and Winery. She is a graduate of Sonoma State University, and has been a guest speaker on wine sales at numerous industry conferences.

“I have known Kathleen for years and had the opportunity to work with her when I was the winemaker at Spring Mountain Vineyard. She is extremely hard working and has excellent sales skills. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with her again,” says Becker. “She is a consummate professional and has unsurpassed knowledge of the sales side of the wine business. She will be an excellent resource for the distributors of our High Flyer, Priest Ranch and Somerston brands.”

About Somerston Wine Co.
Somerston Wine Co. was founded by Allan Chapman and Craig Becker in 2008. Allan purchased the historic Priest Ranch in 2004, later acquiring Elder Valley in the mountains east of Rutherford to create one contiguous property, the Somerston Ranch, in 2006. Somerston opened a downtown Yountville tasting room in June 2010 and in mid 2011, a gourmet grocery will open as a virtual “window on the Somerston Ranch”, featuring Somerston wines, cheese and other local food products. While each site offers unique experiences tailored to their locations- one in town, the other in the country-both the tasting room in downtown Yountville and the ranch in the hills east of Lake Hennessey serve as destinations focused on great wines that convey the history, the beauty and the holistic farming philosophy of Somerston.

Somerston Wine Co. encompasses three distinct wine brands: Somerston, Priest Ranch and Highflyer. Somerston wines are selected from premier blocks on the Somerston estate. These include a single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon ($120), a red Bordeaux blend ($90), and a Sauvignon Blanc ($40), each of which are produced in extremely limited quantities using classic winemaking practices to achieve the best expression of complexity, depth, structure and long-term aging potential. Priest Ranch wines represent the diversity of the Somerston property: Cabernet Sauvignon ($38), Petite Sirah ($38), Zinfandel ($38) and Sauvignon Blanc ($24). Each exhibits the distinctiveness of Somerston’s microclimates with an intensely rich quality.