Darren Michaels Joins Terravant as Laboratory Director

BUELLTON, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Terravant Wine Company, the new alternating premise and custom crush winery in Buellton, CA, is pleased to announce the addition of Darren Michaels as Lab Director of all laboratory services. Darren joins Alan Philips, Director of Winemaking, and the rest of the Terravant team, to oversee all analyses and quality control.

“Getting to know the local producers and providing guidance is a very rewarding experience. Our region's wine makers have a great attitude and appreciation for wine, and their efforts show through to the bottle.”

At Terravant, Darren is focused on building a state-of-the-art wine laboratory, adding comprehensive analytical and enological services to a long list of services being offered at the winery. “Our lab at the Terravant Wine Center will provide a responsive, full-service, enologically-based testing and research center. I want our clients to feel that we are more than just a testing facility, but also a partner in their success, and will share our thoughts and guidance on any wine-making subject. Our lab will be proactive, energetic, and communicative, and I look forward to continuing to being a part of our close-knit community of wine makers.”

Darren comes to Terravant from the Central Coast Office of Vinquiry, where he managed all laboratory services and provided support for a wide range of wine-making products. Over the past several years, and during a time of overwhelming growth in demand for Vinquiry services, Darren helped build Vinquiry's reputation as the primary source of quality products and laboratory services across Central and Southern California. Darren oversaw transition of Vinquiry from a heavy reliance on manual methods towards instrument automation, effectively controlling labor costs, shrinking turn-around times while maintaining accuracy and precision.

At Vinquiry, Darren built his reputation as a community supporter, advocate, and consultant for hundreds of clients, from Paso Robles to San Diego. “Getting to know the local producers and providing guidance is a very rewarding experience. Our region's wine makers have a great attitude and appreciation for wine, and their efforts show through to the bottle.”

Prior to Vinquiry, Darren worked as a wine chemist in the laboratory of Trinchero Family Estates, the owners of such wineries as Sutter Home Family Vineyards, Montevina, and Napa Cellars. At Trinchero, Darren and the laboratory team were responsible for monitoring and maintaining the quality of the wine produced under all of the Trinchero labels, up to 12 million cases a year. He was responsible for performing laboratory analysis of TCA, metals, 4EP/4EG, and all basic analytes of wine and juice. Darren assumed all microbiological duties and headed such projects as adoption of the Adams Assay for phenolic/tannin testing and the development of a novel method of testing for Imidacloprid pesticide in juice and wine using capillary electrophoresis.

As a Biochemistry student at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Darren completed work on the browning and ripening enzymes of fruit. After graduation, Darren joined the Immunology Department of Scripps Research Institute, where he focused on instrument-based production of antibodies for vaccine research against HIV, Hanta, and Ebola viruses. Darren's work at Scripps enabled researchers to explore theories of viral challenge and search for new avenues of vaccine research.

Terravant Wine Company will open for production in spring of 2008 and is currently providing case good and barrel storage and other services at their facility located at 70 Industrial Way, Buellton, CA. Reservations for winemaking space are currently being made for crush of 2008.

Terravant Wine Company provides an end-to-end solution for winemakers from grape sourcing and crush to long-term storage and bottling. Currently the company operates a refrigerated bonded barrel and case good storage facility and will open the new facility this spring. Industry veteran Randy Pace is a principal and General Manager. Terravant Wine Company is a sister company of the Fortune Financial group of companies, founded by Fred Kayne and Associates. Lew Eisaguirre is the local representative of the firm and will serve as a Managing Partner to the Company. Fortune Financial has been a principal investor and exercised management control in a wide variety of business ventures focused mostly in retail and manufacturing. Currently Fortune Financial oversees eight (8) operating companies which it founded including Fortune Fashions, Big Dog Holdings, Paige Premium Denim, Fortune Swimwear, The Walking Company, Visionaire Lighting, Cottonsmith, and Terravant Land Company. Combined revenues of these sister companies exceeds $600 million annually with over 3,000 employees.

Industry veteran Randy Pace has over 30 years wine production experience including a 19 year stint at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars as Chief Operations Officer and 3 years at Bridlewood Estate Winery as General Manger. Mr. Pace has a Masters in Business Administration from Humboldt State University and was the Interim Director at Allan Hancock College for the Viticulture and Enology Department. Mr. Pace also has extensive experience in wine brand marketing as a wine retail buyer.

Lew Eisaguirre has 27 years experience as a Business Consultant, Manager and Executive with a wide range of entrepreneurial undertakings including as a founder of IndeNet (NASDAQ: INDE) and a variety of technology, software and real estate ventures. Previously, Mr. Eisaguirre was a consultant with Price Waterhouse and graduated from Colorado College with a degree in Business and an MBA from University of Alaska.