Our Experience

Two keys to being a good importer are a keen palate and good information. Jeff Welburn and his veteran team all possess excellent palates, but it is the extra measures the company takes to keep a finger on the pulse of the French wine business that separate JWS from most of its American competition.

Contrary to popular belief, France’s best known wineries don’t always produce France’s best wines. Unfortunately, textbooks aren’t revised often enough to keep up with the dynamic nature of the French wine business. A domaine’s reputation for quality can wane with ownership change or the passing of a gifted vigneron. Conversely, brands can vault into prominence when an enlightened member of a new generation assumes control of an underperforming but well-situated domaine and introduces the practical tenets of a quality-over-quantity philosophy.

Jeff Welburn and Jean-Marc Descabannes make frequent scouting trips to France to visit existing and potential client wineries. The JW Selections management team monitors French, British and American press, and closely follows restaurant and retail trends in order to keep the portfolio on the cutting edge.

Jeff Welburn

Jeff Welburn found his calling in Los Angeles in the early ‘80s. Working in some of LA’s best restaurants, he discovered what good wine was all about. Jeff became an avid taster, developing a precocious proclivity for Burgundy while still in his early twenties, and was soon spending all of his hard-earned tips on Côte d’Or wines and every textbook published on the subject.

Over the past decades, Jeff has had the privilege of working with such legendary Burgundy vignerons as Henri Jayer, Jean-Nicolas Méo (Méo-Camuzet), Hubert Lignier and Lalou Bize-Leroy. He was instrumental in introducing the import portfolios of Neal Rosenthal, Martine Saunier and Italian specialist Leonardo LoCascio to California.