When his professional career began with the Seattle Seahawks in 1993, Rick Mirer may not have dreamed of where he’d be today, in 2013, but the long road of professional football brought him this far, why not keep going? After playing college football at the University of Notre Dame, under the direction of Lou Holtz, and then playing in the National Football League for 12 seasons, Mirer enjoyed the activities life brought his way off the field.
While still playing in the NFL, Mirer started the Mirer Family Foundation. According to the foundations website, MFF aims to “assist children in his hometown (Goshen, Indiana) and beyond and to provide Notre Dame scholarship funding for scholars in the surrounding area.” Once Mirer left the NFL, he decided he would put his college degree to use and started his own business in the wine industry: Mirror Wine Company was born in 2008 in the heart of St. Helena, California.
“Wine making was not only something that I was interested in, but it was something I thought I could apply the marketing skills that I had been taught at Notre Dame and apply them to my brand, Mirror Wines,” Mire told NCB in an interview in 2012.
With little wine knowlegdge, Mirer needed connections that would allow him to start and grow a business based on expertise and quality of wine-making. While he lived in the bay area, Mirer decided to reach out to one of his connections that he met while playing football, Rob Lawson. According to Mirror Wine’s website, Mirer has adopted Lawson’s “humble approach to making the best wines possible.”
“I have surrounded myself with good people, and that adds to our success as well. Our expectations are not out of whack; we are just building out business one customer, one person at a time,” Mire told NCB.
According to Mirror Wine Company’s website, the company has released six vintages of Cabernet Sauvignon and four vintages of Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc. In 2012, the company introduced a third wine to its portfolio, and according to the website, the Cabernet Sauvignon from the Cimarossa Vineyard on top of Howell Mountain in Napa Valley, California did not disappoint.
Jennifer 