Heather Findlay fell prey to the wine bug in 1997 after she was love-bit by a bottle of 1994 Groth Reserve Cabernet. Soon she noticed that whenever the wine list appeared at a restaurant, everyone at the table would point toward her. Friends would call her from a wine store, asking for guidance. One day her walk-in closet was gutted, insulated, equipped with a cooler, and filled with bottles. Finally, everyone just started calling her Wine Girl, and an alter ego was born.

Heather lives with her wife in San Francisco and spends weekends in Sonoma, California, on 16 acres near the Carneros appellation (no vineyards, sorry). She runs a small publishing company and wrote monthly wine columns for Girlfriends magazine. Please feel free to write her with tips, questions, and comments; clearly, she lives to talk about wine.