Matthew LaVelle, Winemaker

I'm originally from Palatine, Illinois, a suburb on the Northwest side of Chicago. My family stayed in the Chicagoland area until I was nine years old, when we moved to Grapevine, Texas in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex. I spent the next 17 years in Texas working various jobs and going to school. I graduated from The Art Institute of Dallas in 2002 with an AAS in Multimedia/Web Development. I worked in various creative web development jobs from 2002 through 2006. In 2003, I moved to Oregon and I now live in Eugene.

I started working full time with my Dad on August 1, 2006 as our Operations Manager. I spent various periods of time working in all the different areas of the business. The 2008 harvest was my first year as our winemaker and it's been a great learning experience working with Gary Carpenter, our consulting winemaker.