William Wilson

An attorney and wine educator, married, no kids, one Golden Retriever.

By day I'm an attorney. By night, I'm a wine drinker and educator. Well, my education goes beyond wines, but I do wine education, definitely.

I live in the South Bend, Indiana area and practice law there. I teach entertainment law at the University of Notre Dame for the Department of Film, Television and Theatre, and I've been doing that since 1996. It worked out well since I met my wife that way. I also teach for Indiana University at the South Bend campus, which is where I do most of my in-person wine education. I've also taught in the paralegal studies program there.

I can't say for sure when I got into wine. I was always fascinated by it since about 1975, when I went with my family to the Fetzer Vineyards in Mendocino County, California. Back then it was a tiny operation. I figured there was something cool about wine, even at a fairly young age.

During high school and college at Notre Dame, I didn't do much drinking--I figured I'd zig while everyone else zagged. I found it more fun to watch people in various states of intoxication than to actually be intoxicated. But then in law school (Indiana University's law school in Indianapolis) I started picking up the occasional bottle of wine when I had people over to watch a movie or something.

I didn't know anything much about wine then. I just picked up a bottle at the grocery store.

My interest in wine really took off when I represented a group of wine collectors in a legal challenge to Indiana's prohibition on direct shipping of wine to consumers from outside the state. One of my clients was Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield. I wish I could say I was the brains behind the operation, but I was simply local counsel, working with a lawyer from Indianapolis and a law professor from the IU law school in Bloomington. You can hear more about that adventure in the episode about wine clubs and shipping issues. But needless to say, I got hooked in with a group of people who really know a lot about wine, and they were able to give me a good education.

From there, it was reading Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, and lots of other books, and attending weekly wine tastings at the wine shop a few blocks from my office. The woman who is the program director for the paralegal studies program is also a wine fan, so that was what got me into teaching the wine course at IU South Bend.

The rest is not a bio, but a wine sample policy. It had to go somewhere.

I am happy to accept samples of wine from winemakers for consideration and possible discussion in podcast episodes.

Please note that the receipt of samples does not guarantee that they will be discussed in an episode, or that any comments will be completely positive.

If you would like to send samples for my consideration, please contact me via email at [email protected]