Joe Sebok Shifts From Poker To Grapes
December 27, 2012 12:31 pmJoe Sebok carved out a good career for himself as a poker pro and managed to accumulate $1,896,955 in tournament winnings since 2005. In addition, he set up the highly successful poker multi-media outlet PokerRoad.com along with his stepfather Barry Greenstein
However, over the past two years Seebok has made just $24,792 from live tournaments and at the end of 2011 the 35 year-old decided to try his hand at something different. As he explains: “The game of poker is great and has been good to me over the years. But at the end of the day, if you’re not doing other stuff, all you are doing is counting money.”
As it turned out, grape cultivation was high on Seebok’s list and in 2012 he joined premium custom crush winery Vinify, located in Santa Rosa There he often worked from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. doing all sorts of physically demanding tasks including punchdowns and pumpovers, and he even ended up shedding 17 pounds of weight over the the three-month harvest. As Seebok elaborates:
“I did typical cellar rat stuff. Basically, I came up here and got my ass kicked. It’s not like you can sit back and turn on autopilot in either case. These are challenging jobs.”
After immersing himself in the wine business, Seebok now says he has plans to get into the marketing side of the industry and with that in mind has already had discussions with some of the local wineries. Despite all the incredibly hard work it would appear Seebok’s love of working with grapes is undiminished and he has the same intense passion which at one time helped propel him to the top of his poker career.
“People who love poker really love poker, and people who love wine really love wine. There’s something to be said for strong opinions and the passion that drives them,” said Seebok.