Phil Woodward
Before joining Chalone, Phil Woodward graduated from Northwestern University and worked for Deloitte and Touche in San Francisco. In the early 1970s, he met Richard Graff and became vice president of the Chalone Group in 1972.
After being made president in 1974, Woodward was given the task of finding investors for the company. His innovative approach would set Chalone apart from other wineries. Woodward not only pitched investors on the financial reasons for investing in Chalone, he also sold them on the wine itself. In many cases, he killed two birds with one stone by attracting investors who also became life long customers.
In 1984, Woodward took the company public. Chalone was one of the first high quality California wineries to be publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. After Richard Graff’s tragic 1998 death, Woodward founded the Richard H. Graff Scholarship Fund which encourages young people to pursue careers in the wine industry.
