Trent Preszler

Trent Preszler, PhD (born 1977) is CEO of Bedell Cellars and former Chairman of WineAmerica. His merlot was the official red wine of President Barack Obama's 2013 Inaugural Luncheon, the first time a New York-grown wine was served at a U.S. presidential inauguration. After the death of his father in 2014, Preszler built a wooden canoe using his father's tools. Newsday produced a short documentary film about Preszler's boatbuilding inspiration that won the 2018 New York Emmy Award for Best Lifestyle Program. His eponymous Preszler Woodshop has been featured in The Wall Street Journal Magazine, Esquire, The New York Times Robb Report, Financial Times and OUT Magazine. In 2020, the William Morrow imprint of HarperCollins will publish Preszler's memoir, Little and Often, the story of how the inheritance of his rancher father's tool box helped him wrestle with the grief of his father's and sister's deaths by building wooden boats, leading to self-discovery and forgiveness. A South Dakota native, Preszler was educated at a one-room schoolhouse near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation before graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Iowa State University and earning an MS in Agricultural Economics and PhD in Horticulture, both from Cornell University.