I love Orcas.

I was born and raised on the island. My parents moved to the island in their mid-20’s and raised our family on the side of Mt. Pickett in Doe Bay. I was homeschooled until eighth grade and graduated from Orcas Island High School as part of the largest class in OIHS history (48?). I began working in restaurants at the age of fourteen (Bilbos’s!) and was later mentored by the Orchid’s at Christina’s Restaurant where I returned each summer to work.

I was a political science major at the University of Washington. At one point I studied Arabic and applied to exchange programs in Cairo and Beirut. It was 2001. The timing was poor. Instead I took a six month sabbatical to Europe. I rode the rails, worked in hostels and met a few other crazy people. It was very hobo like. Months of eating and drinking around Spain, France and Italy changed my entire perspective on life. I came home having decided that financial security and American sensibility were overrated and that I would chase a career in wine. I’ve second guessed a lot of decisions in life but most days I’m still comfortable with this one.

In my early 20’s my friend Jeff Lindsay Thorsen (now of W.T. Vintners) and I were working together at Cascadia in Belltown when he suggested that if I was serious about wine it would make sense to pursue wine in a more academic manner. Super! I enrolled in sommelier classes at South Seattle Community College with Shayn Bjornholm and then moved to Vail Colorado to work at Restaurant Kelly Liken. I began traveling as much as I could. Most years I’d work for eight months and then backpack around random countries for the remaining four. I found that lifestyle to be exciting and agreeable to my constitution. My early goal was to travel to forty countries by the time I turned forty. I sped happily past that goal several years early. When I do finally turn forty next year I will embark on an epic adventure and celebration of life.

After leaving Vail I took back to back three months trips. I spent three months in South Africa, Malawi and Mozambique and then three months with the Parkerson brothers down in Central America. Lots of whacky things happened. I hurried back to Seattle and took a sommelier job with the John Howie Restaurant Group at Seastar Bellevue while also working a harvest internship with Master of Wine (and true champion) Bob Betz at Betz Family Winery. Fast forward a couple of years, and some good times at Cavatappi and Hestia Cellars, and I found myself back in restaurants. This time as a sommelier at RN74 Seattle. I loved it. I could wear a jacket, jeans and sell Grand Cru Burgundy. I had passed the Advanced Sommelier exam with the Court of Master Sommeliers and was having fun. But when corporate asked me if I’d like to run the wine program for Restaurant Michael Mina at The Bellagio in Las Vegas I figured why not? Life is short.

So I went and lived between the Aria and The Cosmopolitan on the 35th floor of the Veer Towers and walked the strip to work. I managed a Michelin starred program at one of the most iconic luxury properties in the world. It was a wild chapter. You have no idea. I have some good stories and made some great friends. I spent a lot of time in Southern Utah and came to appreciate the rocks and the desert. But you can’t take me that far from the water before I grow restless.

Ok, almost there. Last stop before the island was working for my good friend Laine Boswell and the Perez-Cuevas family of Bodegas Ontañon in Rioja Spain. I was their national sales and marketing manager and we had a blast. I spent most of my time on the road exploring our country, opening distribution networks and working on building out a US presence. Our clients included Delta, MGM International and The Jose Andres Group and we worked hard to share the story of Rioja Baja, Ribera del Duero and Rueda.

2016 found me living in Seattle with my now ex-wife and building Doe Bay Wine Company as a part-time consulting business. in 2017 we quit our jobs, moved to Orcas and opened the brick and mortar version of the business. Full circle! It hasn’t been easy coming home. I was gone almost twenty years and didn’t expect to be back here quite yet. The island is my home, and I love her dearly, but we still go at it some times. We’ve shared a lot of blood, sweat, tears, love, laughs and sorrow over the years. Memories. We will see what the future holds.

I currently live in a tiny home on my property in Doe Bay. I’m about a four minute drive from Mt. Pickett where I grew up. And where both sets of parents and my brother still live. I’ll build a house over the next couple of years. My passion is still travel. I work to live. I love Oaxaca, Mezcal and Mexico City. Not sure in which order. I keep going back to Vietnam and Japan. Pho, cheap beer and scooters or ramen, sake and fast trains? I’m a big baseball fan. I dig hammocks. I’m stuck in a world of Harvest, Blond on Blonde and Animals. I’m extremely close to my siblings. They are all crushing life. I really, really love good food. If it’s delicious I want to eat it.

Thanks for being here on this ride with me,
Cole

PS. One of my favorite quotes comes from a painting by an artist named Markus Pierson that used to hang in Kelly Liken Restaurant in Vail. It was titled “An American Coyote in Paris” and read “That many had ventured farther and done so in finer style bothered me not. My journey was my own and I found it to be quite spectacular.”