Meet Scott, Proprietor of the D’Aquila-Phillips Wine Cellars
Hello! I’m Scott, your host here at the D’Aquila-Phillips Wine Cellar, most often simply referred to as the DP Wine Cellar. Welcome one and all!
Who’s Scott?
While I wouldn’t refer to myself as a Renaissance man, I do describe myself as a man of diverse interests, talents, and a love for the world of wine and especially Napa Valley reds! I’m at that age where I’m exiting most businesses’ marketing sweet spots, except wineries. I’m a father, father-in-law, grandfather, and recent widower. When not traveling I split my time between our Southern Cellar in the Chicago area and our Northern Cellar in the north woods of Minnesota.
What, in my life, competes with wine?
My life has always been built with family at its center. That said, as we all know families need money so there’s certainly been career too. However, family has, and continues to be, the center of my life.
Call it balance, being well-rounded, or some other phrase, I do have interests other than our wine cellars. Each of these had, and continue to have, impacts on my view of life as well as my views on wine and what goes into our cellars.
The first third of my career I spent chasing the brass ring in Fortune 500 corporate America. Luckily, I caught it early and it brought me wonderful learning and incalculable lessons in working within large, complex organizations with a wide variety of people. At the time I was the youngest Director within Control Data Corporation. CDC was a company at the forefront of not only very early computing, but also pursued as their corporate mission “To address society’s unmet social needs as profitable business opportunities”. It was a great place to work! I learned a lot in the salad days of that company, but actually learned to be a far better manager when it began to crash and burn into near oblivion.
The second third saw me switch career paths and dedicate myself to fundraising for nonprofit organizations. I became a major gift fundraiser and marketing wonk. I raised money for colleges, children’s hospitals, adoption organizations, wildlife rehabilitation, environmental protection, Alzheimer’s disease, and international child development.
Then my wife was diagnosed with brain cancer and for the most recent third I became her fulltime, primary caregiver.
I’ve had demanding, challenging, and difficult jobs before, but never one as complex and demanding as caregiving. I won’t go into detail here about the immenseness of caregiving, but if you have an interest in the realities, the unvarnished realities, of caregiving you can read about it on the Mayo Clinic Connect site. You will find me there as the volunteer Mentor for their online Caregiving community.
My wife fought her war with brain cancer for over 14 years with the last year and a half requiring home hospice. During this time our daughter suggested I needed a hobby to help me through the incredible isolation caused by being a caregiver for someone with a chronic and terminal disease. Never being a big ‘hobby’ guy, I asked for suggestions and she innocently said “maybe you could start to learn about wine. Mom loved it, her family made it, and I’m tired of you always saying ‘I’ll just have a beer’ when we go out to dinner.”
And so it began!
As so often happens a harmless hobby became an interest, morphed into a passion, and now some might say I’m obsessed with it! But again, as our daughter says “That’s OK Dad. I’d never want to see your stamp collection if you had one, but I’ll never turn down an opportunity to check out the wines in your cellar collections!”
Cheers all and welcome to the DP Wine Cellar!