“A great wine education class. I was amazed by the instructor's wealth of knowledge, the
great wines to taste and talk about, and the small, intimate class size. A fun way to learn a lot
about wine.”
—Will, Ritchie Creek Vineyards
“Bruce inspired me to add this new hobby to my life and I am having a ton of fun! Best of all, he
made wine a realistic enjoyment, not a snooty event just for the old and moneyed. He brought the enjoyment
of wine down to my level (a total newbie) and took the intimidation factor out of it.
Thanks so much!”
—Former Student (anonymous)
Bruce Cass began teaching wine in the Bay Area in 1972. Now, nearly forty years and tens of thousands of happy students later, he is folding the Bruce Cass Wine Lab into a new business which will produce self-guided tours of California’s top wine regions as smart-phone applications. Eventually there will also be a print book and an e-book with 3-dimensional maps of prestigious vineyard sites. Bruce hopes this new venture will continue to make exploring wine come alive for his students in a fun, informative, unpretentious environment.
Internationally recognized for his expertise on small-volume California wine producers, Bruce has earned accolades for his work as a wine educator, editor, freelance wine writer and wine judge. He has traveled extensively doing winery research in Europe, the Pacific Northwest, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina.
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For nearly 15 years, he taught wine appreciation classes at Stanford University, from which he is a graduate. Today he writes Straight From the Vine, the Stanford Alumni Association Wine Blog.
For three years (2005 through 2007) he taught the inaugural wine classes to industry professionals at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, Napa Valley.
He is General Editor of the Oxford Companion to the Wines of North America (Oxford University Press) ~ winner of the Best Reference Book of 2000 by the International Association of Culinary Professionals and a finalist for the Andre Simon Award in Europe.
Bruce was the Editorial Consultant for Wine Atlas of California—winner of both the Julia Child and the James Beard awards as Best Wine Book of 1993.
As a freelance wine writer Bruce has contributed to Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine, Hugh Johnson's Pocket Encyclopedia of Wine, and Hugh's World Atlas of Wine.
A founder of the Society of Wine Educators, Bruce wrote the original Wine Educators Handbook which won several prestigious awards for California's Wine Institute.
Bruce has been a taste-examination qualified judge at the California State Fair Wine Competition twenty times, as well as being selected to judge the Sydney Top 100 Wine Competition in Australia (three times) and the HOFEX Wine Competition in Hong Kong.
Prior to 2002 Bruce wrote regularly for Winepros internet site and for Diablo Magazine. He has had several articles in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, Appellation (U.S.), Decanter magazine (Britain), Gourmet Traveler (Australia), Wine (South Africa), and Wine Tidings (Canada).
Some of Bruce's most enjoyable wine experiences were working crush at James Halliday's Coldstream Hills Winery in the Yarra Valley near Melbourne, Australia (1995), and at L'Avenir Winery in Stellenbosch, South Africa (1996).