When I moved to California from Maine on December 29, 1992, I wanted to
segue a PR broadcast career into a PR wine industry career. For 11 years, I had
worked in radio, and was privy to an infinite supply of back stage passes, with
my camera always around my neck. A little known fact is that when the rockers
hit the road on tour, they either started in Portland, Maine and ended on the
West Coast, or did it the other way, ending their tours in Portland. So, I got
to see it all, while I photographed everyone from Bryan Adams to ZZ Top, and
everyone in between, multiple times. It was a gift from the universe that I
thoroughly enjoyed.
When I started my interview process in the California wine industry, I
quickly found out, 1) I wasn’t born into it, 2) I didn’t marry into
it, and 3) I had no friends in it. So, “How did you actually think that
you’re going to get into it?” was the question implied in most job
interviews. I was laughed out of some pretty great offices, too. God bless them
all, because not having someone believe in me is the exact juice that I need to
drive myself on. I become hell bent on proving that it will materialize.
“Winery Cats” is what I did in between working part time in
Belvedere Winery’s tasting room, interviewing for a full-time position,
and proving myself to Belvedere until I became a full-time employee. This all
happened years ago now, but the effort has never left my heart or soul, as I
was able to personally capture a part of the wine business that has to do with
integrated pest management.
Here is the original winery cat story in the Wine News from 1995:
Cat O Wine Tales
Wine News - June/July 1995
I’ve cat-egorized the images, because cats seem to do the same things
over-and-over again; all day and at each winery. It took about 1,000 images for
me to discover this, though, and this is a place for winery cats to be
immortalized.
If you’d like to have your cat be part of this process, please send an
Email to meow@winerycats.com, and we’ll arrange a photo
shoot. -- jo diaz
