Rob de la Teja

A decade in the wine trade, now building the tools it should run on
robteja@robteja.com · New York

As my career has progressed, the margins on my resume have grown smaller and my work history more condensed. The more you've done with your life, the harder it gets to tell the story on a single page, so I built this CV. This is the second version. The first one overwhelmed me, which is how I knew it was working.

I can sum up the first decade of my career as a happy accident. After graduating from journalism school at the worst possible time to do so, I moved to New York City. My only plan was to find a job fast enough to stay. After burning through my savings, I fell into bartending and mixology, which progressed naturally to wine, something I'd accidentally been trained in since youth.

The second decade is less accidental. In 2025 I left retail for Vinous, and by 2026 I was shipping software I'd spent years wishing somebody else would build. Journalism school taught me to edit. The wine trade taught me what's worth buying. The last two years taught me those are the same skill, and that it's the one machines still can't fake.

The trade

Vinous Media, Assistant to the CEO and Sample/Tasting ManagerJanuary 2025 to October 2026

New York, NY

September Wines & Spirits, General Manager & BuyerOctober 2019 to June 2024

Lower East Side, Manhattan

Three years before my first shift at September Wines, I had just gotten my first wine store job in Bed-Stuy when I stumbled across the little boutique on a disappointing shopping trip to the Lower East Side. Most of the products came from smaller importers, and largely the ones I was already working with. I told myself that in three years I would be managing the place. Exactly three years later, in my first week working there, I was promoted to Buyer. Six months after that, in the middle of the pandemic, I was promoted to General Manager.

Over nearly five years I faced more than in any other stretch of my life: a pandemic, a secretive change of ownership, the deaths and health scares of loved ones, multiple unprovoked assaults, and, worst of all, the price of a slice of Lower East Side dollar pizza going to $1.50. I am proud of what I did there because I do not believe anyone else would have lasted as long under those conditions. It is also where I found out, after years of trying to believe it, that I can handle whatever life throws at me.

I left them with a few cases of killer Gevrey-Chambertin I had just bought for $26 a bottle. I hope they fixed the AC.

Free Range Wine & Spirits, Assistant ManagerFebruary 2019 to September 2019

Brooklyn, NY

I first encountered Free Range while I was still selling Manhattan Moonshine, years before I worked there. The owner had firmly but politely rejected my pitch: "It needs to be brown if it's going to sell. Great bottle though." After a disappointingly brief stint as a sommelier at Salt Bae's Nusr-Et Steakhouse, I applied for the Assistant Manager position without realizing which store I was applying to. The role required substantially more vendor communication than my previous ones, including all reorders on staple SKUs. It was also my best education yet in New York's chaotic allocation game: learning which rare products sell themselves if you can just get your hands on them.

Grain & Vine, Buyer & Sales AssociateApril 2018 to January 2019

Brooklyn, NY

I accepted the position thinking I had applied to be manager, and ended up grateful that all I was expected to control was the wine buying. The store's open concept gave the team a lot of room in merchandising, and displays had to be refreshed daily to hold the aesthetic. Where Bed-Vyne had an indie focus to its spirits, Grain & Vine leaned heavily on the major Bourbon producers. To this day I have never worked at another store that landed an allocation of Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year.

Bed-Vyne Wine & Spirits, Buyer & Sales AssociateAugust 2016 to May 2018

Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn

I got the job while helping a broker friend show apartments in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. After showing a unit on Rogers Avenue, we wandered into a store called Vyne Yard, now owned by the legendary André Mack. The then-owner, Sandy, was impressed enough by my wine knowledge to refer me to her brother Mike and the other owners of Bed-Vyne. In the absence of management, ownership took back the day-to-day and expanded my role to include buying. The first big change I made with that responsibility was overhauling the store's merchandising: using wasted space to double the visible selection on the shelves and widen regional representation. Sales went up.

I commuted ninety minutes by bus each way, daily, for almost two years, and I never complained, because the work was that fulfilling. Bed-Vyne is not just a wine store. It is a community, and I owe it my whole career.

Manhattan Moonshine, Brand Rep and Sales AssociateJuly 2016 to February 2017

Brooklyn, NY

My move out of the service industry and into retail began with a commission gig selling a premium, award-winning white dog whiskey. The owner had claimed the lucrative territories of Williamsburg and Manhattan, which made me the rep for the rest of the outer boroughs. The product no longer exists, and not for lack of trying to sell it.

Service2013 to 2019

Nusr-Et Steakhouse, Sommelier (2019) · Naples 45, Bartender (2016) · Center Bar, Bartender (2016) · Parm, Bartender (2015) · Roberta's, Delivery (2015) · JEM Entertainment, Events (2013 to 2015) · Skytown Bar, Trivia (2013 to 2014)

Service taught me that being merely good is never enough. Maintaining the atmosphere matters more than mixology. The work is never as easy as it looks.

My own

MAS+Creative, Founding Principal2026 to present

A solo naming and verbal identity practice, New York

NattyWineRag.com, Editor in Chief2022 to present

Natty Wine Rag came out of my appreciation for wine education and my distaste for pretension in the industry. The goal: intermediate-to-advanced wine knowledge, delivered with more satire and a wider world view than my contemporaries, without ever getting the facts wrong.

PGPN Global (Pigpen), Founder and Creative Lead2021 to present, on hiatus since early 2026

Pigpen (PGPN) may very well be my life's proudest achievement, and my only excuse to have a social life: an all-inclusive lifestyle brand for the, shall we say, more filthy segments of the LGBTQ+ community. The first three runs of apparel and merchandise sold out.

PulpMacabre.com, Babadook in Chief2021 to present

In September 2020, inspired by the personal and global horrors surrounding me, I started writing short horror stories as a hobby. They picked up something of a cult following, and by the end of 2021 I launched PulpMacabre.com to share portfolio samples of the work. The end goal is a two-to-three-book publishing contract: the collection Pulp Macabre first, then the novel Blood & Wine, which is still in the works.

Birthstone Spiritsest. 2023

Liqueur brand

Journalism

Journalist, critic and editor2010 to 2018

During my freshman year, half the local newspapers in the United States went bankrupt. Before that I got to interview a lot of cool artists and musicians, review films and nightlife, and write a few editorials about censorship and streaming media that turned out to be prophetic.

School and training

BS Journalism, a Boston school on the Princeton Review's top-ten lists, 2012

Minors: Visual & Media Arts, Business Studies · Dean's List · Recognition & Achievement Award

WSET Level 3 Candidate

Morris Catholic High School, 2008

Principal's Honors · National Honor Society · Spanish Club Chairman

Also

NYC DOH Food Handler's Certification · Life Scout with Order of the Arrow · NAUI certified diver

Languages

English, Spanish

This page prints to a clean CV. A one-page résumé is available by email. Back to the map.