Richard Peck is Wine & Beverage Director for Table 301 Restaurant Group, Greenville, SC (http://www.table301.com), including Soby’s (New South Cuisine), The Lazy Goat (Mediterranean), Devereaux’s (American Contemporary Fine Dining), and The Nose Dive (Gastropub).  In addition to overseeing purchasing and the financial side of Table 301’s wine program, Richard’s roles at Table 301 include: 

•  Conducting Table 301’s three-tier wine education program:  a mandatory 12-week “Wine Basics” Course he created; an ongoing intermediate-level “Wine Seminar”; and an advanced tasting course, for staff members preparing for credential examinations.  In addition, Richard leads numerous custom events for guests and corporate clients. 

•  Leading The Greenville Wine Meetup (http://www.meetup.com/winemeetup), a group of 850+ wine enthusiasts who meet regularly for wine education, social tastings, and wine dinners.  This Meetup has proven to be a significant way to promote wine education in Greenville, as well as to enhance the Table 301 guest experience. 

•  Enhancing guests’ wine experience through innovative technology.  Soby’s just rolled-out iPad based wine lists, using Incentient’s SmartCellar application.  Guests can browse wines by color, region, varietal, price, vintage, availability of verticals, and more.  A label photo is shown for each wine, along with many more attributes than it is possible to present on a conventional list.  Guests can also drill-down to see maps, more detail about unfamiliar varietals, and more. 

•  Blogging and social media dealing with Table 301’s wine program.  Richard posts occasionally to Vine & Grape (http://www.vineandgrape.com), as well as maintaining a regular stream of wine-related posts and tweets on Facebook and Twitter.  He was recognized in Nation’s Restaurant News in 2009, as one of the restaurant industry’s early adopters of social media. 

Richard also designs and organizes the wine track for Euphoria – Greenville, SC’s four day food, wine, and music festival (http://www.euphoriagreenville.com).  In addition, he has served on the steering committee for Greenville’s Red Cross Wine Auction for the past five years, with the auction raising an average of more that a quarter of a million dollars (net) annually. 

Richard’s passion for wine began when he turned 21, and was touring nationally as keyboardist for a rock band.  He and a colleague in the group bought Frank Schoonmaker’s original Encyclopedia of Wine, and began tasting from A-Z.  In his subsequent executive roles in publishing and technology companies, Richard had the opportunity to travel to most major wine regions around the world. When he took early retirement, prior to moving to South Carolina to be nearer his family, Richard worked for a prominent Sonoma County, CA, winery doing wine education and guest events. 

Richard is a Certified Sommelier (Court of Master Sommeliers), as well as a CWE (Certified Wine Educator in the Society of Wine Educators, and was only the 289th in the world to achieve that distinction at the time he passed his examinations).  He is also an accomplished public speaker, the author of four books, a multi-engine instrument-rated pilot, and holds an MBA from the University of South Carolina.