Director of Wine and Viticulture and a founder and shareholder of Craggy Range Winery, Steve Smith is the only Master of Wine in the world who is also a viticultural specialist. In a field of careers founded upon long family history, the irreverent Smith cites his great grandfather—one of New Zealand’s famous bootleg whiskey makers—as his family heritage.

Viticultural Education

Smith graduated Lincoln University in Field Experimentation in 1983 and became a research assistant to Dr. Richard Smart, the Australian viticulturist who pioneered canopy management techniques now used in many winegrowing areas of the world. Smith published numerous academic and popular papers based on his own work, and was awarded the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Scholarship in 1985 to study grapevine disease at UC Davis in California.