Alyssa Rapp
Founder & CEO

Alyssa J. Rapp, is the founder and CEO of Bottlenotes.com , the premier online wine community where wine enthusiasts come to learn about wine, share tasting notes and buy wine. Alyssa is also the author of Bottlenotes Guide to Wine: Around the World in 80 Sips. (Adam's Media, October 2008). Alyssa previously served as the sales/marketing manager for RO Imports, an importer of boutique New Zealand wines in New York and co-presided over a 300-person wine club at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Alyssa earned a B.A. in Political Science and the History of Art from Yale University in 2000 and an M.B.A. from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 2005. She also serves on the Board of Trustees for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Alyssa was named in Inc. Magazine's "30 Under 30". coolest entrepreneurs in America in September 2008 and one of Playboy.com’s “10 Sexiest CEOs” in American in May 2009. Alyssa co-resides in Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area but greatly enjoys traveling around the world in search of today's best wines.

Kimberly Donaldson
Co-Founder and Managing Director

Kimberly Donaldson founded the Donaldson Design Group, a corporate branding, graphic design and marketing firm based in New York, in 1994. The firm's clients included companies from the financial, fashion, entertainment and wine industries. She has worked as a consultant to Kobrand Corporation, creating marketing programs for various wineries including Cakebread Cellars. Kimberly received a B.A. from Yale and a Master of Fine Arts from Boston University School for the Arts.

Andy Anderson
Chief Operating Officer

Andy joined Bottlenotes after completing his MBA at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University where he majored in Marketing and Management & Organizations. After working in management consulting for almost six years in Chicago, New York and San Francisco, Andy decided to follow his passion for wine. In between consulting jobs, Andy spent three months working at Villa Monteleone, a winery in Italy’s Valpolicella, and was exposed to many aspects of the wine production process. Andy also did his undergraduate studies at Northwestern, majoring in Economics and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences.

Eric Arnold
Editorial Director

Eric Arnold learned about wine the hard way. Instead of just tasting and reading, like everyone else, he quit his job and moved to New Zealand, where he spent a year working at a vineyard and winery, learning as much as he could about the dirty work that goes into making great-tasting wine. Between stints training vines under the hot sun or toiling on the bottling line, he wrote First Big Crush: The Down and Dirty on Making Great Wine Down Under (Scribner, 2007). He joined the company in 2010, after two years as the deputy lifestyle editor at Forbes. Prior to that, Eric was the news editor for Wine Spectator. Eric graduated from Boston University, and brings frequent, ill-timed Big Lebowski references and a serious passion for all things fermented, brewed or distilled to his role as Editorial Director of Bottlenotes.

Jonathan Wallace
Operations Manager

Jonathan brings a passion for wine, travel and languages to his role as Operations Manager. Jonathan’s interest in wine was first sparked while studying abroad in Chile. His adventures in travel and wine eventually lead him to a position of Marketing/Export Manager at Casa Marin Vineyards in Chile. After returning to California Jonathan spent one season in Beaver Creek, Colorado after which his travel addiction drove him back to South America for a four month stay in Brazil. Jonathan holds a BA in International Business from San Diego State University and a Licenciatura en Negocios Internacionales from the Universidad de Valparaiso in Valparaiso, Chile.

Leta Soza
Marketing Manager/Assistant to the CEO

Leta’s love of wine was cultivated at an extremely young age. Her family are serious wine enthusiasts who have been making and bottling wine in their driveway since 1981. Leta has bounced across the country from Chicago, to Rome, to New York before finally landing back in the Bay Area with Bottlenotes. She received a BA in Marketing from Loyola University of Chicago and danced professionally in New York for 3 years before tackling her Sommelier Certification through the Sommelier Society of America.