BOBAG WINES - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Bilingual Senior Sales Executive
Alberto Lataliste is a Bilingual Senior Sales executive expert with over 18 years of experience in luxury wine sales and the restaurant business in the US.
Job Titles:
- Director of South American Brands
Bob's winemaking ability is better described as an innate sense than a technical skill. If there are ‘green thumbs' in gardening, then Bob has a ‘purple thumb' when it comes to making wine. This natural sense revealed itself many years ago when Bob was part of the start of the boutique winery movement in California.
The ‘boutique' wineries were the small wineries that were intent on making wines that pushed past the ‘functional beverage' that had been made up to that point. They were wineries like Ridge, Monterey Peninsula, Calera, La Creama Vinera, and Kistler. All of these wineries distinguished themselves by making small lots, vineyard designated, and by using traditional French techniques, which were innovative at the time.
Bob was one of the founders of La Crema Vinera. This winery could be characterized as contributing to the California boutique winery movement by bringing Burgundian methods to California and Californian wine-afficionados in a gonzo kind of way. Unfortunately the winery met its financial demise, but the name has carried on (now owned by Kendall-Jackson) because it represents the quest for quality that was the love of these pioneers.
After La Crema, Bob contributed to the winemaking effort at Chalk Hill Winery, followed by the Benziger Family winery. It is at Benziger that he hit his stride again. And it was there that he helped develop--along with his friend and fellow winemaker, Bruce Rector--the Imagery Series.
Hossein Namdar came to California in 1978 and went to school at USF in San Francisco and obtained a degree in Theology and Philosophy. In 1982 he was hired by Moet Chandon (Domain Chandon) in Yountville, California where he became a vineyard technician specializing in grafting. After three years, he was transferred to work at their cellar.
At the same time he attended UC Davis. In 1986 he became partners with Domaine Chandon whose CEO at that time was John Wright. They purchased a 214 acre vineyard on Lakeville Highway in an area now known as Petaluma Gap. The newest AVA in the US. By 1995, ninety acres of Pinot Noir grapes were planted with Dijon clones.