Premiere History
 
Premiere Viticultural Services ("Premiere"), headquartered in Napa, California was founded by Jim Verhey and Al Buckland in 2001 in response to the growing complexities and challenges that growers and wineries were facing in consistently and cost-effectively producing high quality winegrapes from their vineyards. Jim Verhey, Premiere's CEO, is also President of UCC Vineyards Group, which owns several ultra-premium vineyards in Napa, and a Director and Manager of Silverado WineGrowers, which owns and operates over 2,000 acres of vineyards in the Napa, Sonoma, Lodi and Monterey winegrowing regions. Al Buckland, a Premiere Director, owns and operates Buckland Vineyard Management, which provides vineyard management services to over 400 acres of vineyards in the Napa, Sonoma and El Dorado winegrowing regions.
 
In order to address the complexities and challenges created by the ever-increasing customer-driven demands for increased quality at lower costs, the new technologies, and the needs for better planning and communication, Steve Matthiasson joined Jim Verhey and Al Buckland in 2001, as Premiere's President. Steve Matthiasson has a Master's in Viticulture/Pest Management from UC Davis, and most recently was at R.H. Phillips Wine Company as Director of Viticultural Research. Steve made a major contribution to the industry with his work in drafting the acclaimed Winegrower's Workbook for the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission, which provides growers with a vineyard self-assessment tool and manual. This book formed the basis for the Wine Institute/CAWG Code of Sustainable Winegrowing Practices. Also on Premiere's Board, Vice President and a key member of the board, is Garrett Buckland, who joined the team in 2003. Garrett, also a Graduate of UC Davis brings experience as a Consulting winemaker and Viticulturist to our development team, and is instrumental in ongoing development and enhacement of our system and services. John Duckhorn, an experienced software developer and GIS expert, joined the board in 2003 after working as a consultant with Premiere in developing the PremiereVision © database application. John currently serves as chief software programmer, constantly enhancing the Premiere Vision funcionality.
 
Premiere currently provides Vineyard Consulting services to clients on more than 2000 acres of ultra-premium vineyards throughout Napa and Sonoma, and Viticultural Database Services to over 20,000 acres across the world. Premiere's clients have consistently experienced significant, cost-efficient improvements in the quality of the winegrapes they are producing and in their relationships with their winery partners.
 
In 2004, Premiere introduced PremiereVision © as a separate product for outside clients. Premiere's proprietary (patent pending) real-time internet-based service that allows its clients to efficiently manage and monitor all critical information for their vineyards from pruning through wine production. PremiereVision © is designed to provide our clients with a simple, but powerful, tool to make better decisions and to better manage the performance of their vineyards on a cost effective basis without having to invest in new hardware or software. PremiereVision © provides our clients, through a cost-effective and totally secure service, with an efficient and flexible system for collecting, managing, analyzing and presenting or communicating all of the critical information necessary to produce premium winegrapes that they or their winery clients demand. The ideal PremiereVisionŠ client is the winery with its own premium vineyards, the winery who purchases premium grapes from independent growers, and the vineyard owner who sells premium grapes to multiple wineries.
 
Premiere's mission is to assist our clients in consistently and profitably producing winegrapes of superior quality on a cost-effective basis through excellence in planning, execution, technology, quality control and communication. All of these aspects are critical since producing superior quality winegrapes on a cost-effective basis requires the involvement and cooperation of several critical, but separate, functions: viticultural planning and quality control, vineyard operations and execution, and winemaking. Superior quality and cost-effective performance have little real long-term value without good communication. The Vineyard Farm Plans that Premiere develops annually for its clients are the road maps that allow our clients to achieve superior quality on a cost-effective basis while building a strong and lasting partnership with their winery partners.
 
The primary objective of Premiere is to develop long-term relationships with selected clients where we can add significant value on a cost effective basis. We add value by:

• Clearly understanding our client's desired goals and objectives;
• Applying a methodical and scientific but creative approach to viticultural analysis and decision-making;
• Utilizing the most appropriate viticultural science and technologies available world-wide today;
• Delivering concrete recommendations to help our clients meet their specific goals and objectives;
• Following through on ensuring that the proper execution of our recommendations in the field (quality control);
• Providing access to the PremiereVision database application which facilitates critical viticultural and operational decision-making
• Communicating effectively and often with our clients.