Sandra Taylor

President and CEO, Sustainable Business International

Sandra Taylor is the president and CEO of Sustainable Business International, a consulting business that assists companies at various stages of environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice. Her clients are in the food and beverage sector and consumer products companies. In addition, she is the Falk Professor of Socially Responsible Business at Chatham University Falk School of Sustainability in Pittsburgh, PA.
Sandra has studied wine extensively for many years, completed the French Wine Scholars course in 2010 and is a graduate of the Wine MBA program at The Bordeaux School of Management in France, a fully accredited international business school that also offers a Master’s in Business Administration with a focus on the study of the global wine industry. Her first book, The Business of Sustainable Wine, was published July 2017.
Sandra is a public speaker on wine, notably at the annual International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) in Oregon’s Willamette Valley; ); wine2wine Business Forum in Verona, Italy; the Oregon Wine Symposium in 2019; New Zealand’s Romeo Bragato annual wine industry conference; 17th Australia Wine International Technical Conference (AWITC); Winebow Women in Wine Leadership Symposium 2018. She is a wine collector and columnist with Wine Review Online.

Sandra has had an extensive executive career in corporate public affairs, environmental sustainability, public relations and communications, and has held leadership positions with top tier organizations including Starbucks Coffee Company in Seattle, Washington as senior vice president over global Corporate Responsibility, ethical procurement and the Starbucks Foundation; and the Eastman Kodak Company where she led global government relations, foreign trade policy, and corporate citizenship; as well as government service with the US State Department.

Sandra is active in community board service, including RiverLife in Pittsburgh, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Annapolis, MD and Island Press in Washington DC.

She attended Colorado Women’s College, where she majored in French and graduated with BA; Boston University School of Law, where she received a Juris Doctor (JD) and the Bordeaux School of Management (now Kedge Business School) where she earned a MBA.

Tod Mostero

Director of Viticulture and Winemaking, Dominus Estate

Director of Viticulture and Winemaking at Dominus Estate, the Bordeaux connection runs strong through Mostero, who trained in viticulture at Chateau Haut-Brion and in winemaking at Etablissements Jean-Pierre Moueix.

Born in Southern California, he originally studied architecture at Tulane University in New Orleans and at the Architectural Association in London. After discovering wine through friends and wine-lovers from France, he moved to the Gironde and studied French literature at the University of Bordeaux, followed by a degree in vineyard management at the Lycée de Blanquefort and eventually a master's degree in enology from the University of Bordeaux.

He trained at Haut-Brion and in the chateaux of Etablissements Jean-Pierre Moueix while he was earning his degrees. In 1999, he moved back to his native California to work a vintage at Opus One, a joint venture between Baron Philippe de Rothschild and California's Robert Mondavi. He then returned to France, but this time it was to Burgundy, where he spent a harvest at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, conducting experiments on phenolic compounds while working in the vineyards and cellar. At the end of 2000, Mostero was named the technical director of Domaine de Lambert, a property that the baroness Philippine de Rothschild and her sons acquired in late 1998. He then joined Viña Almaviva, another Rothschild joint venture (with Chile’s Concha y Toro) in 2004, where he made four vintages before returning to work with Christian Moueix in 2007, this time at Dominus Estate in the Napa Valley.

“My greatest influences as a winemaker are Patrick Léon, Aubert de Villaine and Christian Moueix, the ‘trinity’ of great men of the wine world. Patrick Léon was my mentor at Baron Philippe de Rothschild, an outstanding taster who can tell the history of a wine with his nose and mouth. Aubert de Villaine is all about integrity and honesty, qualities you can taste in his wines; it would have been impossible to leave Romanée-Conti without being completely changed by his presence—dignified, unpretentious, and humble.
“Christian Moueix has been my guide throughout my career and has been my greatest example of a perfect winemaker. He is clear, precise and is profoundly attached to the vineyard. He has guided me from the beginning.”

Alison Rodriguez

Winemaker, The Hess Collection

Alison Rodriguez, a winemaking graduate from the Fachhochschule Geisenheim, has honed her winemaking skills in hillside vineyards of a wide variety: from the slopes of the Rheingau and Nahe valleys, to the alpine foothills of the Alto Adige, to every hillside AVA in Napa Valley.

Alison’s work in these diverse growing regions has given her perspective on what nuances the unique combinations of vineyard site, soil, slope and sun contribute to the personality of each wine. In 2016 she joined the team at The Hess Collection as Winemaker, and is currently responsible for the creation of the Napa Valley based Allomi Cabernet Sauvignon, Hess’ Award- winning Monterey Chardonnay, the new restaurant exclusive Shirtail Ranches wine portfolio, and contributes her skills to the Hess Collection Mount Veeder and Lion Tier wines as well.

She enjoys travelling for work and pleasure, having visited over 35 winegrowing regions throughout the world. A few new regions on her wish-list are the Savoie, Priorat and the sparkling wineries of southern England. In tandem with her winemaking, Alison has also earned the WSET Advanced Certificate.

She is an enthusiastic gardener, and has planted a scent garden at her home filled with various verbenas, lavender, roses, geraniums, citrus and herbs of all varieties. She lives in Napa with her Swiss-Spanish husband and young daughter.

Chris Pasani

Senior Winemaker, ZD Wines

Growing up in a big Italian family, Senior Winemaker Chris Pisani learned to appreciate the very aspects that make Napa Valley so memorable: great people, history, wine and food. During his formative years, Chris studied chemistry in college while experimenting with winemaking at home. He quickly was hooked, and Chris was destined to move to the Napa Valley wine country with his wife, Ina. Chris followed the path of many Napa Valley renowned winemakers and attended UC Davis to study viticulture and enology. Chris fell headfirst into the world of winemaking and started down the path that would lead him to ZD Wines in 1996. As senior winemaker, Chris, along with third generation Winemaker Brandon deLeuze, is responsible for producing ZD’s world class wines: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet. Together, they strive to make the best wines in Napa Valley and focus on quality, consistency and style.

Anna Brittain

Executive Director, Napa Green

Anna has worked locally, nationally and internationally on environmental management and policy with organizations ranging from the environmental economics think tank Resources for the Future in Washington, DC to the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Hanoi, Vietnam. She has spent more than eight years working as a sustainability consultant with the wine industry, with an expertise in communications and certification standards. She has helped lead the growth of the Napa Green program for over five years, and stepped into the position of Executive Director of the now independent non-profit in fall 2019. Anna has a Master’s of Environmental Science & Management from the Bren School at UC Santa Barbara and a BA in Political Science and Environmental Studies from Williams College.

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