Hollywood's Wine Seller

Meet the man who keeps the stars stocked with the best vintages.

- Sheila Marikar

CHRISTIAN NAVARRO CAN BARELY stride 10 paces DRINK down the big, breezy corridors of the Four Seasons Resort in Maui without stopping to clap a shoulder or kiss a cheek. Though this Hawaiian luxury hub plays host to many traditional celebrities—the Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali hangs out by the lobby, awaiting a car—on this weekend, the first in March, 52-year-old Navarro, the president of Los Angeles’ preeminent wine seller, Wally’s Wine & Spirits, is top dog. He’s organized the resort’s first annual wine and food classic, convening high-end producers from France, Italy, California, and 200 wine connoisseurs for four days that might best be described as oenophiles gone wild.

By the adults-only pool, there’s a “glassology” class taught by a Riedel representative who decries the ubiquitous balloon-shaped glass as “the enemy of all red wine.” (He instructs note-taking attendees to pour a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from a narrow glass into a paper cup, asks his co-instructor what it smells like in that lesser vessel, and nods gravely at her response: “tragedy.”) On a lawn overlooking the ocean, the “Discovery of Pinot Noir” seminar devolves into a debate about the merits of making Pinot in California vs. France. (“They can have hail in July,” says a Napa loyalist. “We have an embarrassment of sunshine.”) On the balcony of a penthouse suite, it’s time to saber a magnum of vintage Billecart-Salmon Champagne, but the sharpest tool in the room is a butter knife. No matter! An assistant rushes down to the lawn to shoo passersby away from potential flying cork and glass, but a suave Frenchman does the job quickly, cleanly, and seemingly effortlessly as Navarro whoops and shoots a video on his phone. As the host, isn’t he a bit anxious?