This is how I ended up a Wine Otaku living in Hakuba.

Food.  My love affair began at an early age thanks to my Mother, Mildred Price Marquiss, whose sumptuously prepared meals were a staple of my growing years on our family's subsistence farm in rural north-west Florida.  I have many a fond memory of gracious Sunday dinners with family, friends and Momma's true Southern Hospitality!  While Vendimia Wine bar doesn't serve Fried Chicken with biscuits, gravy and a side of Collard greens, it does serve delicious foods with the same Southern Hospitality acquired from those formative years around my Mother's table. 

Wine.  As soon as I was able to legally purchase alcohol while a university student in Tallahassee, Florida, my journey began.  Together with friends Kevin Stout, owner-chef of Food Glorious Food and John Milton Ensor Parker, artist, fine wines were procured and great meals created at home because dining out on a college budget meant eating foods and drinking wines that were below our burgeoning gourmet palates. We did manage to eat out now and again, but most of our wine experience was in home, and limited to the burly Californian wines fashionable during the Nineties.

I moved to Japan in 1997 as an afterthought.  Little did I know then that here was a place where the Old World reigned supreme, yet thanks to an inquisitive nature, brilliant New World discoveries were never far away . 10 years later, I started C. Lawrence Selections and opened Vendimia Wine Bar as a way to sell Spanish Wines I had imported with a former business partner. To improve my ability to offer fine wines for excellent times, I've broadened my wine knowledge with continual tasting and formal wine education; obtaining the Society of Wine Educator's CSW and the Wine and Spirits Education Trust's (WSET) Advanced Certificate. Currently, I am engaged in attaining my  WSET Diploma with Honors. 

My love of wine has evolved from interesting hobby to passionate career, thanks to friends, family, a thirst that won't quit and a Mother who inspired me and continues to do so to this day with fab food and wonderful wine from her kitchen on the Little Buffalo Ranch, Gillette, Wyoming.

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