Bio: Bob Haas

Robert Haas has played a leading role in the American wine industry for over half a century. After graduating from Yale in 1950, he joined his father's firm, M. Lehmann, Inc., a retailer of fine wines and spirits in Manhattan. As a buyer for the company, Haas traveled through the cellars of France, establishing a formidable reputation as a wine taster while forging lifelong relationships with premier wine producers.

In 1973, he started Vineyard Brands to import fine estate wines from Burgundy, Bordeaux, the Loire, Alsace and the Rhône Valley, where he met the Perrins of Chateau de Beaucastel and became the exclusive American importer for Beaucastel. As the company grew, it introduced the American market to brands such as La Vieille Ferme, Marqués de Cáceres, Santa Rita, Warre's Port, and Villa Maria. The company also served as a representative for newly emerging California wineries including Chappellet, Freemark Abbey, Clos du Val, Joseph Phelps, Rutherford Hill, Hanzell, Kistler, and Sonoma-Cutrer. He founded the symposium "Focus on Chardonnay" in 1984 to promote dialogue between producers in Burgundy and California, and still serves as a moderator every four years, alternating between California's North Coast and France.

As Managing Partner of Tablas Creek since its foundation in 1989, Haas has consistently spoken in favor of organic viticulture, minimum-intervention winemaking and wines of terroir and sophistication. He has spoken on wine and winemaking topics at festivals around the country, including the New York Wine Experience, the Boston Wine Expo, Society of Wine Educators annual meeting, Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta, Hospice du Rhone, Central Coast Wine Classic and many others.

Haas is one of three American members of the Académie Internationale du Vin. In recognition of his contributions to the international wine community as an importer, a vintner, and an advocate for quality, he was elected as the AIV president in 2000.