Industry Veteran to Elevate Distribution and Expand On-Premise Sales Nationally
Woodside, CA, April 24, 2018 – – Clos de la Tech is proud to announce the appointment of Vito Gambini as Managing Director. In this newly created position, Mr. Gambini will develop and implement a national strategic business plan designed to expand representation and sales at high-image restaurant accounts and independent retailers. Other business directives will be to open new markets with fine wine distributors and manage the growth of the winery’s DTC business.
Clos de la Tech is known for producing some of California’s longest-lived and most complex Pinot Noirs. The wines are a product of steep vineyards, grueling coastal weather, very low yields and the traditional winemaking techniques practiced in Burgundy in the 1830s—native yeast fermentation of hand-picked, foot-crushed whole clusters. Clos de la Tech’s Pinot Noir wines have the concentration and structure to evolve and improve over decades rather than years. Each vintage is aged for four to five years before release. Currently vinifying roughly 2,000 cases a year, Clos de la Tech is poised to quadruple production over the next five years as newly planted estate vineyard blocks come on line.
Mr. Gambini has more than 20 years of experience serving in a variety of senior management positions with R.H. Phillips Wine Company, Vincor USA, Laetitia Vineyard and Winery, Leucadia Cellars and Estates, Westerly Vineyards, Sage Beverages and Gruppo Gambini. Highlights include national new brand launches in multi-unit restaurant accounts with Toasted Head and Kim Crawford wines. As President & COO of Westerly Vineyards, Mr. Gambini opened New York, Florida, Illinois and California markets with a highly rated wine portfolio from the new California AVA of Happy Canyon.
Prior to entering the wine industry in 1998, Mr. Gambini had a successful career as an award-winning restaurateur in San Diego. As General Manager of Prego Ristorante, Vito hosted wine legends Angelo Gaja, Robert Mondavi, Bruno Ceretto, and Piero Antinori at several regional Italian dining events. A partner in Red Hot Restaurants, Vito managed operations for the late Hall of Fame NFL great Junior Seau’s restaurant and Crescent Shores Grill, La Jolla, CA, Mr. Gambini has two sons Anthony and Dominick and resides in Carlsbad, CA. with his wife Peggy.
About Clos de la Tech
With caves tunneled deep into a vine-covered ridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains and vineyards so steep they have to be farmed with a unique, specially-designed tractor moved by cables, Clos de la Tech is one of the most ambitious and innovative Pinot Noir producers in California. The winery was established in 1994 and continues to be operated by TJ Rodgers, founder and retired CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, and his wife, Valeta, herself a former chip designer. Some of the highlights at Clos de la Tech include extreme growing conditions, high-altitude terrain, hand farming, high-density planting (4,150 vines per acre), low yields (often less than one ton per acre), gravity-flow winemaking, foot-crushing, native-yeast fermentations and no fining, pumping or filtration, just as winemaking was done in Burgundy in the 1830s.
