A great meal deserves a great wine

Ed Lefferts is passionate about two things – his wife and wine.

Ed’s always been in the restaurant business, starting as a dishwasher at age 14. He’s never really known what he would do with himself but head to a restaurant five nights a week. As he moved up, he ran into diners that would order $500 bottles of wine – and to Ed, it always seemed like it was Cabernet Sauvignon. So, he started learning about wine and buying as much Cabernet as he could afford.

Then came Monique. They met, naturally, in a restaurant. By the end of that first shift in Scottsdale, Arizona, he knew she was the one. A few years later, they decided together that they’d head to Portland – mostly to get closer to the vines.

Rather than move up the management track, Ed kept his job as a server; spending his free time learning to make wine. Today, they’ve both still got those restaurant gigs, but William Marie Wines – named for his and her middle names – is winning fans who know a good wine when they taste one.

(Oh, and that pig corkscrew on the label? That’s all Ed could afford to give Monique for their anniversary way back when.)