St. Helena, Ca. (September 25, 2019) — ETS Laboratories, the pioneer and leader in wine analysis and testing, has hired winemaker Don LaBorde for the newly created position of director of industry relations.
The addition of LaBorde to the team provides customers with another direct channel to ETS scientists and support staff as well as a personal resource to discuss any harvest or winemaking issues. LaBorde will be calling on ETS customers throughout the year to discuss their greatest needs and find ways that the company can meet them.
“Having an experienced winemaker dedicated to industry relations adds an exciting dimension to our ETS support team and will enhance our customer interactions,” said Gordon Burns, president of ETS Laboratories. “Don can talk to our winemaker customers as a peer who understands the daily challenges they may face. He is the perfect liaison between the customer and the technical team at the lab.”
A native of Louisiana, Don earned his wine science degree from Australia’s Charles Sturt University — one of the world’s most respected viticulture and enology schools. Following the completion of his degree, Don returned to the U.S., where he served as enologist at Napa Valley’s Trefethen Family Vineyards and subsequently as the assistant winemaker at Francis Coppola Winery, where he supervised winemaking activities at multiple facilities.
Prior to joining ETS, LaBorde held the position as the first winemaker for Duckhorn’s Decoy brand, followed by five years as the winemaker for Paraduxx, also part of the Duckhorn Portfolio.
LaBorde’s hiring is the most recent move to enhance the ETS customer experience. This month, the company released a new mobile site to provide customers instant access to lab results. The site is available free of charge to all existing customers at etslabs.com.
About ETS Laboratories
ETS was established in 1978 by Gordon and Marjorie Burns in the basement of their Main Street home in St. Helena, Ca. As the wine industry developed in size and complexity, ETS responded by investing in modern equipment and facilities and by hiring highly-trained technicians and researchers. For more than four decades, ETS has continued to develop new methods of analysis and introduce new analytical technologies to the wine industry with an emphasis on accuracy and quality control. In 1997, ETS became the first ISO‐accredited independent laboratory serving the wine industry. The ISO 17025 standard requires internal and external audits of methods, systems, training and results. Today, ETS is one of the most advanced wine laboratories in the world and offers the industry’s largest selection of ISO-accredited analyses.
