Greg Van Wagner

Greg Van Wagner grew up in central Pennsylvania racing road bikes. After a sponsorship took him to Boulder, Colorado—cycling’s U.S. hub—he landed a job with Master Sommelier Bobby Stuckey at Frasca Food & Wine. It was there Greg’s passion for wine and great dining took shape. From that moment, he shifted his focus from pedal power to palate power. At Jimmy’s, an Aspen institution of 25 years, Greg had carte blanche to develop his skills and an award- winning wine program. From 2014 to 2021, he expanded the wine list to 1000 selections, receiving numerous local and national awards.

In 2018, he passed the notoriously difficult Master Sommelier exam on his first attempt, earning the highest score and the prestigious Krug Cup. Most recently, he built the entire wine and beverage program for a new restaurant, Parc Aspen, from scratch. In its first year under his direction, the 1300-selection list won a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence, and Greg was named Aspen’s Best Sommelier. Taking advantage of Aspen’s off-seasons, Greg has dedicated the last 12 years to spending two months annually traveling to the world’s premier wine and spirits regions. In 2020, Greg expanded into wine production by launching Ajax Cellars in partnership with winemakers in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and Colorado’s Western Slope. The inspiration for founding SommGeo came from a desire to better communicate the sense of place and style of any wine region worldwide and to understand it more intuitively than text alone can provide. By leveraging his expertise through SommGeo’s unique GIS mapping technology, Greg has become a key speaker at events like the Colorado Wine Fest and national series for Somm Journal and the “Beneath Beaujolais” campaign, using the platform to bring wine geography to life.