Sterling developed an early appreciation for wine. Growing up the son of a Presbyterian minister Sterling realized that discussions about alcohol probably weren't going to happen around the dining room table. While he was in college at a small Iowa school Sterling learned what "dry counties" were all about and how difficult it would be to have fun on a weekend without driving some distance in the bitter cold during an Iowa snow storm.

After graduation, Sterling joined the Peace Corps and spent more than two years in French West Africa where he learned that wine could be made from palm sap. (and beer could be made from millet.)

After leaving the Peace Corps he spent several months traveling through Europe where he tasted wine from bota bags in Pamplona, from borrowed hostel glasses in Milan, and from plastic cups at a roadside booth in an area he had never heard of called Burgundy.

Landing in Chicago in 1971, Sterling determined he would pursue his love of wine and promptly landed a job as a warehouse rat working for Chicago's oldest wine merchant. By that point Sterling had begun to differentiate red wine from white. And he realized some wines came in bottles with corks.

Hired by Schaefer's in Skokie in 1978 to run their Wine Department, Sterling had finally found a home. After many trips to California, Australia, South Africa and Europe Sterling now feels at home with the world of wines, with the down-to-earth nature of the real business of wine selling and today takes an unpretentious view of one of the world's great food treats.

Sterling is the Wine Director at Schaefer's. Sterling was asked to serve as a panel judge at the American Wine Competition in New York for several years and the Sydney International Wine Competition in Australia. Sterling once served as the wine columnist for the Herald papers and now writes a monthly wine column for the Pioneer Press papers. Sterling was a founding member and officer of the Chicago chapter of the Knights of the Vine and currently serves as the cellar master for the Moraine Valley Chapter of the Chaine des Rotisseurs. He is also affiliated with l'Ordre Mondial des Gourmets Degustateurs. Sterling serves as lecturer for several private groups of professionals who hold regular wine gatherings. Aside from being Schaefer's resident francophile (using his French fluency as often as possible), Sterling tastes a wide range of wines from around the world and does the majority of the wine buying for Schaefer's. [Sterling prefers Pinot Noirs and Rieslings, the "greatest grapes in the world".] Sterling is also one of Schaefer's oldest Mac geeks and designs and desktop publishes the brochures for all of Schaefer's wine sales. (Yes, there's still an old Mac Plus in its carton in the crawl at home.)

Sterling is married to a beautiful and remarkably understanding woman from a large family in east Wilmette, Julianne Hahn; lives in Highland Park; is an ordained Elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA), occasionally sings in the church choir and is proud of his attorney-daughter, Katie, and his musically-gifted soon-to-be-star second daughter, Liz. Gardening, drawing and hiking the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina take up whatever time is left over.

P.S. - Who'd have guessed? Sterling grew up in Columbia, MO; and the Cincinnati area, played football for the Kentucky state champion high school team, was the editor of his yearbook and class president -- but after all that moved to Chicago to make a living. And one day a customer walks into the store who was in the same junior high school (remember when they were called that?) in Cincinnati! That's the "classmates.com" equivalent of the Bears winning every game of their season. We still see each other occasionally.