Wine Disruptor Kashy Khaledi: On going rogue in the Napa Valley - a podcast by 7x7 Bay Area

When Ashes & Diamonds first came onto the wine scene in late 2017, its singular modern architecture and rabble-rousing programming disrupted Napa's lineage of stodgy wineries, where your baby-boomer parents might feel at home drinking a big cabernet in a dated, amusement-park-like setting.

Such an eye for nonconformity may have been forged during proprietor Kashy Khaledi's coming-to-America era—his family immigrated from Iran at a particularly impressionable time during Khaledi's youth and, as a result, the now-40-something scion of the biz (his father is the founder of the well-respected Napa mainstay Darioush Winery) remains a die-hard fan of what his adopted hometown of Los Angeles offered—namely, punk music, skateboarding, and baseball.

Through the gaze of all that is perpetually cool in California, Khaledi has been able to bring a fresh (slangfully speaking) winery experience to the valley, making Gen Xers and Millennials feel more comfortable with the culture of wine, a historically intimidating potable.

For the sixth installment of 7x7's "People Will Talk," Khaledi sat down with us to chat about all the ripples he's set into motion to break up the "Napathy," with some pop-culture name-dropping—as only a former Capitol Records and MTV executive could effortlessly accomplish—thrown in for good measure.

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