WINE ENTHUSIAST WINE STAR WINNERS 2020
In 2020, we mark the 21st anniversary of Wine Enthusiast’s Annual Wine Star Awards, honoring the individuals and companies that make outstanding contributions to the wine and alcohol beverage world. In a challenging year, we salute the dedicated professionals who have innovated, flourished and exhibited a passion for change.
From winemakers to wineries, sommeliers to CEOs, innovators and social visionaries, each winner has balanced business acumen with vision, shown a drive and resilience to weather challenges, and made steps to evolve the future of wine and alcohol beverage.
Nominated by our global sales, events, marketing and editorial divisions with final selections made by our executive publishing team, winners will be honored via a virtual event in January 2021. For details on the event and further insight on our selection process, visit winemag.com
On the pages ahead, meet the bright stars of 2020.
HEIDI SCHEID
PERSON OF THE YEAR
The Scheid Family Wines executive grows the family business while helping others through the Wine Market Council.
“I love this industry from the bottom of my heart,” says Heidi Scheid. “To bring wine into the everyday lives of Americans—I just really believe in that mission.”
When Scheid first came on board at Scheid Family Wines as the director of planning in 1992, the Salinas Valley-based estate was a grape-growing and -selling venture. Taking on the executive vice president role in 2017, Scheid has overseen the company’s quick evolution into an estate vineyard and winery that now produces a broad portfolio of its own-labeled wines as well as a series of private labels for retail clients.
Outside the family business, Scheid is the current chairperson for the Wine Market Council—an organization that provides wine market knowledge, trends and insights to its industry members.
“It is so valuable to midsized wineries who can’t afford to have their own research and development department,” she says.
A midsized-winery executive herself, Scheid understands the value of utilizing market data to grow. For her, it’s important for that growth to be sustainable.
“My responsibility has been helping to lead that evolution from a supplier to other wineries to a producer that’s on the global map bringing bottled goods to the marketplace,” Scheid tells Wine Enthusiast.
“In this business, it’s hard to become a big player. It’s hard to create a brand from zero and go to a million. But we’re a scrappy company.”
According to her, in under 10 years, Scheid Family Wines went from producing a modest 4,000 cases to 600,000 cases annually. Under her watch, the Scheid family has also increased its vineyard holdings to 12 estate-owned sites, totaling 4,000 acres of vines—all of which are certified sustainable and working toward organic certifications.
“One of our core values is continuous improvement, and for us, the next step is obtaining organic certification on 100% of our vineyards by 2025,” Scheid says.
With that spirit of improvement, Scheid Family Wines’ estate winery turned its attention to employee and consumer health. It achieved British Retail Consortium (BRC) certification in 2016 and was noted as one of the first wineries in North America to earn this accreditation known for having the highest level of food safety protocols.
Having this certification, Scheid says, has helped the business act as a leader in terms of how to operate in a pandemic.
“We have all the audit procedures in place: a sanitation team, wine quality control and documented traceability of all products from vine to bottle.” The rigorous standards allow the business to ensure it provides clean, safe products to their clientele as well as maintain a healthy work environment for all employees.
Scheid Family Wines’ newest label, Sunny with a Chance of Flowers, is a low-calorie wine. “The research validated to us and our business partners that…the ‘better-for-you’ category is real,” Scheid says.
“In this business, it’s hard to become a big player. It’s hard to create a brand from zero and go to a million,” she says, “But we’re a scrappy company. And you have to be scrappy in such a competitive marketplace.”
For her dedication to responsible growth, consumer health and employee safety, Wine Enthusiast is proud to award Heidi Scheid as our Person of the Year.
—Stacy Briscoe
ALAN DREEBEN
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
After growing American wine culture through his Republic National Distributing Company, the executive retires this year.
Alan Dreeben, the widely admired and respected partner in Republic National Distributing Company, will step down from the board of directors at the end of 2020, bowing out of management of the second largest wholesale wine and spirits distributor in the United States. Dreeben, 77, will hand off his board seat to his son-in-law Marc Sachs and will take a part-time role as advisory director after 54 years with RNDC.
“Never in my wildest imagination did I think that we would have the size and scope that we have today,” Dreeben tells Wine Enthusiast. “We’re not through. We will continue to grow, but being the biggest is not my goal. My goal has always been to do the best for our customers. Now my part will be to help set the vision and be a cheerleader.”
Often, it seemed as if Dreeben was working for the benefit of nonprofit organizations or the wine industry as a whole as much as he was for the company. His curriculum vitae lists dozens of organizations in health care, education, the arts and religion that he and his wife, Barbara Block Dreeben, have supported over the years.
“I was not to the manor born but came from a modest background,” says the San
