SAMANTHA BRIX PHOTO | Gilles Martin in the production facility of Sparkling Pointe holding a bottle of 2002 Brut Seduction.

Gilles Martin doesn’t remember a time when he wasn’t making fruit juice.

The winemaker at Sparkling Pointe Vineyard in Southold remembers picking, coring and slices apples for cider as a child with his grandfather about 10 miles outside the Champagne region of France, where he was born.

When he grew older, he knew he wanted to work in technology and near the environment to be close to nature.

He joined his uncle, a winemaker, in the Langedoc province in the south of France when he was 22 years old. He earned undergraduate degrees in biology and food science and a masters degree in oenology from the University of Montpelier. There he completed a masters thesis on the technology of wine ultra-filtration, which received international acclaim and was awarded by former French president Jacques Chirac.

He then set out on a career in wine industries around the world, gaining much success and notoriety.

Read the complete story on our Wine Press blog.