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Parador Selections, LLC was officially founded in 2002 by James Turney. Unofficially however, the company was founded in 1995 when I met my wife Rosa Iglesias-Blazquez in New Jersey. She was on a student Visa and I knew almost no Spanish. In fact, we took a dictionary on our dates.
My first visit to Spain was in March of 1996. That was a real epiphany. Such a dramatic difference in culture, it led to a few changes that eventually landed me in wine. At the time I was in sales and always loved to cook, so Rosa suggested I go to cooking school. I went to New York Restaurant school and graduated in 1998. I had externed at Chanterelle before graduating and my first job was at One if By Land, Two if By Sea. Then I went to work at Dish Restaurant in Passaic Park in NJ (NY Times-Excellent), where I worked every station all the way up to sous-chef by 2000.
However, I worked so many hours, and the pay was terrible that I had to think about how I was going to not get divorced before I was going to get married. So, I quit in June 2000 and Rosa and I left for Spain to get married in Toledo and spent the rest of the summer in Spain.
Fast forward to September 2000, and with Rosa one week away from school and me with no job, I had to act fast. So I thought that I could either go back into sales, selling high end food products, or, lo and behold, a wine job appeared in the New York Times on that Sunday for wine sales. What they hell I thought. I drink wine, I like wine, let's sell wine. So, I sent my resume to Morrell & Company. I met with Roberta Morrell and after 15 minutes had the job.
Two years later, Helio San Miguel, the zen-like wine teacher of anything and everything Spanish at Instituto Cervantes, told me that ICEX was looking for importers. I said, "Helio, I have no money". He said, "Don't worry, they are going to pay for the hotel and flight." I said, "Great". And off I went. And came back with a Rioja, Marques de Tomares, and never looked back!
I continued working at Morrell until the summer of 2008 and on the business part time and finally left to make an honest go at the business fulltime.
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