A friends dad treated us to a real dinner, after living on chianti, pizza and pasta for 5 months he thought we might want to taste some real Italian wine and cuisine.  I watched in awe as the waiter brought a vintage Brunello, decanted it table side, and then left it to ‘breath’ for our first courses.  I had never seen anything quite like that, and then once I got my first sip… that was it.  I was wisked away.  I have been working with wine in one way or another ever since.  

From restaurants in Boulder CO, I moved briefly to Charleston South Carolina where I took over my first wine list, then to Blue Fin in Times Square NY as an assistant Sommelier, to Tellers on Long Island as Wine Director/Sommelier. Whilst at Tellers I asked one of my favorite Italian producers to host me for the 2004 harvest so I could learn more about wine making. After the harvest, they asked me to stay on to take care of Public Relations, and a bit of their international marketing. I stayed for more than a year on the estate, and returned to NY the following fall where I started working for Sokolin.

After two years with Sokolin, Italy came calling again in the shape of Amy Wadman at diVino Tours, an experience that had me help create custom itineraries for wine and gourmet travel all over Italy. 

Over the years, whether in Tuscany, Long Island, or NYC, I have been fortunate enough to discover numerous hidden gems, small boutique wineries making wines in harmony with nature, many using either organic or biodynamic methods.

In 2009 I decided to call these producers Indie Wineries and started looking to find homes for them in the US. These wines have soul, they are alive and are full of charming and unique personalities and represent the antithesis of the mass produced wines that unfortunately saturate the market. They are the wines that have inspired the birth of my passion project, ‘Indie Wineries’.

Indie Wineries are all artisanal, sometimes natural and biodynamic, always organic, handcrafted terroir-driven wines.  These wines often represent the wine maker him or herself… and so getting to know the person behind the wine is just as important as getting to know the wines themselves.
My mission is to share with you the wines, and introduce you to the artists and estates behind the wines that make our eyes light up, that ‘wow’ us, that inspire us to learn more, and that keep us on a constant and fascinating journey in the world of wine. I hope you enjoy the ride!

to study (Duke) and to see family and friends. It was not until the beginning of this century that I have approached the wine world through Summer Wolff, my next door neighbor in the small village of Montaldo in Piedmont, Italy. A new world of honesty, enthusiasm and love for their craft has immediately overwhelmed me. I felt then and am proud now to be part of Indie Wineries and represent and work for these amazing producers. It has been 4 years now and it gets more exciting every day as the family grows bigger all around the world.

Meeting his colleagues and friends of the wine world, translating e-mails into English for her parents, she got to know Indie Wineries and had always stayed in touch. After completing two internships with Indie Wineries, for her studies she’s officially on board in France, ready to discover new hidden gems and learn more about French wine culture.

 around the globe. My first wine experience was working at a local wine bar in Miami. I was exposed to over 800 different wines, along with building connections with different Sales Reps, Exporters, Wine Makers, etc.  After working there for a year, I knew the next step was to obtain an understanding for the business aspect of the industry. I then moved onto working for one of the bigger Wine & Spirits importers and distributors in South Florida.  Shortly after, I moved back to NY and that was when I gratefully stumbled upon Indie. I have learned a completely different side of the wine world, and there is only so much more to learn from Indie!

I can happily admit that joining the Indie team exposed me to natural/Indie style wines. Living in Miami for the past 5 years only exposed me to the “Commercialized” wines. I am truly grateful to be working for a company that I fully support and admire.

I worked for an international school and spent most of my time kayaking and hiking with our visiting students. After working and traveling around South East Asia, I returned to the States to go to NYU. As a poor grad student, I got a job at my neighborhood restaurant, The Farm on Adderley. It was there that I discovered natural wine. I tasted wines by Olivier Cousin and Domaine du Mortier, and I was hooked. I had no idea wine could taste like this.
After years in the restaurant industry in New York, I moved to London and worked for The Quality Chop House. There, I spent time telling stories about our food suppliers and wine producers. Then last summer, I decided to take the WSET intermediate course in the Finger Lakes. I returned to London with renewed excitement. One night at Lonzo in Hackney, I had a conversation with Carlo Lupori of Caves de Pyrene, which inspired me to pursue the life of a wine consultant. Soon after returning to the US, I read about Indie Wineries and knew this was the team I had to join. I’m so honored to now be able to share the stories within the Indie portfolio with my fellow New Yorkers.

With my almost 10 years knowledge of wine history and consumption (did I say consumption?), a diploma as a Sommelier and an international experience in the US, I luckily came in contact with Indie Wineries.

 head after that trip. I moved West to pursue a career in environmental sciences. After that ran it’s course, with several stops in between, Indie Wineries seemed like the right fit given my personal philosophies and relationship with the environment.

Like many that grew up in the U.S. without a family history of drinking wine with dinner, my exposure to “finer” wine came a bit later in life. I was seventeen or eighteen years old when I had a (small!) glass of Beringer Chardonnay that lit up my senses and set me off on a life of wine exploration. After several years of drinking the “typical” California wines of the time, my palate started craving more complexity and less power. I don’t recall a similar epiphany with natural wines, just a gradual progression of my palate and general disfavor with the current state of modern winemaking. It’s been wonderfully exciting to watch and share in the growth of Indie Wineries, and to see and hear the overwhelmingly positive impressions of clients, to the wines and the portfolio at large. Time for even more!

One day we planned on driving up to Napa Valley and go wine tasting. None of us had ever been but we figured, “when in California, go wine tasting”. Long story short, we got lost and frustrated. This was before the days of cellphone and car GPS and people were still using a paper maps (oh the horror!). We turned around, stopped in a local wine shop, and brought a bottle of wine home. That wine? Castle Rock Napa Valley Cabernet Reserve 2003. I still have the empty bottle as a memento. Fast forward to 2007 when I first dipped my toes into the wine business. I was working at Starbucks and met the owner of a local wine shop and asked if he was hiring. The rest is history. The small wine shop ended up being one of the largest retailers in fine wine on Long Island. One of the salesmen took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew about wine. We shared laughs, love, and lots of wine. Press pause: It is 2016, I am WSET certified, enjoy music and cooking, and love speaking in movie quotes. I have always been a huge supporter of the Indie Portfolio since its inception in 2010. I cannot wait to get out and show the world what good wine REALLY is. I would say press “STOP” at this point in my story, but when it comes to wine there is no stop button, only a continuous reel that has not been filmed yet.

experiment first-hand what it means to make wine. From that moment my life is changed, after first experience was decided to understand more and more spending each year some months i harvesting and making wine in different parts of Italy, Slovenia, Austria. Meanwhile I continued my academic career at the Faculty of Foreign Languages ​​and Literatures of Turin, taking part in the Erasmus program in 2007 to study abroad, choosing a country that I knew well, having spent much of my holidays and loving its wines… Spain! There I knew Paula, the mother of my daughter. Back in Italy I started working for Slow Food as responsible for a part of the event’s Salone del Gusto and at the same time writing for Slo-wine and Birre d’Italia guide, always edited by Slow Food. After a brief stint at the UN managing the bistro, the restaurant and bar in the formation center of Turin, decided that the wine was my life. For this reason during last 6 years  worked as export manager for different Italian wineries until when we have decided realize our dream and move to Spain. Here I am! Happy to share with you my experience of a country that followed in love.

After this project, a booked called “Lo Stadio che ha cambiato il Calcio (the Stadium that has changed football) was published by Priuli and Verlucca (2011), which included my photographs. In 2012 I moved to NYC to work with Christopher Anderson, a member of Magnum and resident photographer of the New York Magazine. A long time friend of Fabrizio Iuli and Summer Wolff, in 2012 I started working with Indie Wineries sharing their love for great wines made by great producers. My latest project for them is a photo gallery of producer portraits. The shooting took place during their annual Portfolio tasting in NYC, March 2016. To know more about my work please visit my website www.cosimomaffione.it

She joined the Indie family in October of 2016 and has enjoyed opportunities to meet the producers Indie represents and connect with wine in a new way.
In her spare time, you can find Chris tending her orchids, taking photos no one will ever see, and hosting dinner parties for friends. She loves how wine can mark an occasion and bring people together and is intrigued by its constantly evolving nature, both in the glass and as an industry.

then that I really became interested in non-interventionist, organic, biodynamic and natural wine. Tasting through hundreds of wines a week, some started to stand out, have more personality, a purpose and a sense of place. I met the Indie team at VinItaly in 2011 and I knew immediately that I had found my ‘wine family’. Bringing these wines to the market in Seattle, I got the same reaction from buyers that I had: these are wines with a purpose and a sense of place. It is very gratifying to be able to truly believe in everything you present It took us a few years to go out on our own in Washington but it has been a fantastic journey and I couldn’t be happier.

someone who I’d grown up with on the East End of Long Island involved in such a unique and fascinating business, made me see that one didn’t just have to enjoy wine as a spectator, but could be a part of the process.


A few years later, I got a call asking if I wanted to join the newly formed Indie team. Join a company that seeks to find small hidden gems and bring them to the masses? Kind of a no-brainer! Working with Indie, I’m blown away by the sheer numbers of different varietals I’d never heard of, let alone tasted. Getting to meet the winemakers  (or rock stars as I like to think of them) at their respective vineyards is truly the best part for me. Seeing the passion and dedication they have to their craft is inspiring and always reminds me that Indie isn’t just a company that imports organic wine. It is a family of artists and enthusiasts (like me) that love doing what they do….and also happen to import some pretty amazing wine!
 As a lover of travel and experiencing new cultures, I’ve been fortunate enough to introduce new ones to this wonderful world of Indie by being a guide and taking them to various vineyards we work with in Italy. Seeing their newfound appreciation for wines and the producers who create them is one of the most satisfying aspects of working for this company.

He spent 12 years in the wine industry in SF, before moving to Los Angeles in 2015. Raphael and his wife love the diversity and constant physical and cultural transformation of LA, especially the eastside and downtown areas. They also drive to Tijuana and Ensenada as often as possible for the best tacos and drinks south of the border.
While his specialty is French and Italian wines, there are no off-limits topics or regions, no matter how obscure or well-known.  Raphael believes that the story behind the wine is just as important as its region of origin or grape variety, and that above all, wine is personal.  Grape-growing and winemaking have been integral parts of human existence for thousands of years, yet there is always something new to learn, and new wines to discover.