Jeff Meisel is the Vice President of Brand Development for Long Meadow Ranch based in St. Helena, California.
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Jeff oversees all things marketing and development across Long Meadow Ranch, Farmstead Restaurant, Hunt & Harvest, and Stony Hill. We chat about Jeff’s story and career in the wine industry thus far, his learnings, and dig into how the Long Meadow Ranch umbrella brand works to engage with customers across marketing channels, platforms, and in real life, along with the specific strategies and tools that they implement do grow the brand across its many product offerings.
Prior to Long Meadow Ranch, Meisel was co-founder and President of Merchants of Beverage, a cutting-edge, e-commerce destination that was the elegant online destination for flawless client & team gifting solutions of highly curated wine and spirits. Imbibe Magazine named Meisel in “The Imbibe 75: People, places and flavors that will shape the way you drink in 2015. Unfortunately, Merchants of Beverage shut down in September 2015.
Prior to creating Merchants of Beverage, Meisel worked with Gilt Groupe for two years. In October 2011 as the Consulting Wine Director at Gilt Taste, he directed the entire wine business overseeing its strategy and operations including sourcing, merchandising, positioning, and financial planning. In addition to working side-by-side with Editorial Advisor Ruth Reichl and Managing Editor Jennifer Pelka, Jeffrey worked closely with executives across all Gilt business units. During this time, Meisel was featured in various media outlets, including CNN Eatocracy and Gentry Magazine’s March 2012 feature article, “7 Men of Intrigue, Courage & Captivation.” In April 2013, Meisel joined the team at Gilt City as Wine and Spirits Consultant.
Before joining Gilt, Jeff Meisel was Vice President of Business Development for Domaine Select Wine Estates. DSWE represents wines and specialized spirits from around the world. He joined DSWE in 2001 just eighteen months after its creation and immediately launched the business beyond the NY base, proving to be instrumental in its growth. Meisel went on to lead national sales and education programs. His last three years at DSWE as Vice President of business development were spent negotiating strategic partnerships and building new sales channels with hotel groups, national retail big box stores and direct-to-consumer companies, representing over twenty-five percent of the gross revenue for the company in that period. In 2010, Food & Wine Magazine named DSWE Importer of The Year.
From 1999 to the summer of 2001, Jeff was a co-founder of wiredKitchen.com, an online marketplace for food professionals and one of the first software companies that connected independent restaurant chefs to their food suppliers by providing procurement options and inventory management tools. Alas it was ahead of its time and wiredKitchen suspended operations in July 2001.
Prior to wiredKitchen, Jeff was immersed in the world of wine and spirits while working in top restaurants in Northern California and New York City, including managing The Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone Restaurant in Napa Valley where he worked closely with Karen McNeil and Joyce Goldstein, two of the most respected women in the wine and food business. In NYC, Meisel worked at Zoë Restaurant and at San Domenico.
Meisel had the chance to work with Chef / Author Joyce Goldstein again in 2005 and 2006 when he paired each and every recipe of Goldstein’s for two books, Slow and Savory and Antipasti.
If that wasn’t enough, Jeff has had many local fans in San Francisco who have enjoyed his wine selections at the James Beard Foundation Award winner Delfina and Pizzeria Delfina where he was the Wine Director from 2002 through 2006 and Beretta (Tales of the Cocktail Award winner) where he created the opening wine list.
Meisel currently serves as an Advisor to www.ItsOnMe.com and www.SevenFifty.com.
Jeff lives in San Francisco with his wife and two sons.
In this episode we mention…
Domaine Select
Long Meadow Ranch
Stony Hill Vineyards
Stephane Vivier
Live Fire Guest Chef Series
Sevenrooms Reservation system for keeping and tracking customer data
Merchants of Beverage, one of Jeff’s former businesses
Gilt & Gilt Taste
Jen Pelka – The Riddler & Magnum PR
Manual Creative SF agency
Fort Point Brewing design
Twilio Texting platform
Verve Wines
Empathy Wines & Gary Vaynerchuk
2012 Chateau Musar Rouge
Franco Massolino Barolo
Follow Jeff On…
INSTAGRAM
FACEBOOK
WEBSITE
