Wine Industry Leader To Speak At New Vision Annual Meeting

We are pleased to announce that Ted Baseler, president and CEO of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, will be the keynote speaker at our annual meeting on March 10th.  The event will take place at the Yakima Convention Center from 12-1:30 p.m. 

Baseler started at Ste. Michelle in 1984 as their marketing director and rose steadily wihtin the company until he became president and CEO in 2001.  He has focused on building a high quality portfolio which has resulted in wines lauded by critics, including Wine Spectator magazine’s coveted No. 1 Wine in the World title for 2009.  Mr. Baseler’s talk in Yakima, From Nowhere to Number One, will chronicle the rise of Washington’s wine industry. 

According to Vic Motto, current owner of Global Wine Partners and a player in the industry for nearly three decades: “There aren’t many people in the wine industry who’ve had his kind of impact on the region. As Robert Mondavi did in California, Ted has promoted not only his company, but the entire industry.” Motto adds,“It’s the foundation that he and Allen [former CEO Allen Shoup, who recruited Baseler] built together, and Ted has refined it quite a bit. They’ve probably been helpful to half of the Washington wine business.”   

Baseler believes that, as the Washington wine industry goes, so too goes Ste. Michelle:  “We want Washington known. All of it. We’re not about to fight over whose bottle of wine gets sold. We’re competing with Napa, with France. We’re not competing with Washington wineries.”  It is attitudes like this that provide Baseler his well earned reputation as a leader within the Washington wine industry.  According to his colleague and competitor Norm McKibben from Pepper Bridge Winery, “Ted sits in a position where he can take the broad view.  If Ste. Michelle had been like one of the big guys in California, I don’t think we’d have a statewide wine industry like we do today.

Tickets for the annual lunch meeting cost $30 per person or $200 for a table of eight.  Please contact the New Vision office at 509-575-1140 or newvision@ycda.com to reserve your seat(s). 

Story attributed in part to the Seattle Business Magazine