Vikrant Batra has been chasing wine through New Zealand, South Africa, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, in pursuit of good bottles, better stories, and the occasional lunch that ran on into supper.
That obsession has a way of spreading. He is a co-founder of Glorious Earth Wine Company, an importer of organic and biodynamic wines that owes its existence, more or less, to the stories in this book. As an investor and advisor, he has been quietly involved in a small collection of food and wine ventures on three continents: Ritual at Manresa in Los Gatos, California, where the kitchen is handed over each month to a different Michelin chef; The Green in Hamilton, New Zealand; and Sǣl, an eight-seat dining room in Birmingham, England.
He has spent a quarter of a century in global marketing, most of it running large organizations across more time zones than any reasonable body should endure, and building brands for a living. He is also a co-founder of an AI company that helps organizations figure out what to do with artificial intelligence before it decides what to do with them.
He lives in Los Gatos, California, with his family, and is still reluctant to open bottles of wine that should have been opened long ago.
