Ehren Jordan's biography reads like something out of a Ken Kersey novel. While a young adult studying art history and classic archeology at George Washington University, he took a part time job in a retail wine shop. The experience convinced him to flee to the West, eventually settling in Aspen, Colorado, where he skied, worked busing and waiting tables and eventually becoming a resident sommelier. Armed with the accumulated experience from his retail and restaurant exposure, he set his sites on the coastal region of California.