I am Armenian, and that heritage informs how I see the world. Over nearly three decades as a geophysicist, my career has taken me across continents, shaping a life defined less by a single origin or destination and more by curiosity, movement, and exploration.

Today, I am based in Houston, Texas; a city I’m happy to call home while my work continues to bring me to places people don’t immediately associate with wine. Along the way, I have visited 96 countries and explored more than1200 wineries. Wine became a constant companion, not as a luxury, but as a lens. Wherever work brought me, I explored deliberately: detours instead of highways, back roads instead of shortcuts, small local wineries instead of famous names, simply to understand what people were creating and why.

Exploring American wine beyond California, Washington, and Oregon changed my expectations entirely. In states rarely associated with wine, I encountered producers making precise, expressive wines rooted in place. My background as a geophysicist made the connection intuitive: what was beneath the surface mattered as much as what was in the glass. Terroir stopped being an abstract idea and became something tangible."

When I started sharing these discoveries with friends and colleagues, many didn’t believe me. Great wine from there? I heard it all the time. But that disbelief only strengthened my passion and my purpose.

That curiosity and conviction eventually grew into Pour Across America, a wine club created to showcase the incredible diversity of American wine. Today, I travel state by state, meeting winemakers, selecting small-batch wines, and telling the stories of the land and the people behind each bottle.

Because amazing wine isn’t limited to famous regions, it’s waiting to be discovered all across America, one pour at a time.