Eric Arnold was born and raised in New Jersey, graduated from Boston University in 1997, and was fired from pretty much every job he had thereafter. During college he tried doing stand-up comedy, and despite being booed off the stage pretty regularly, he convinced the head writer of The Tonight Show to let him fax in monologue jokes to Jay Leno every day - for every joke that got used, he'd be paid $50. Over several months, he was paid exactly $50.

Eric had no interest whatsoever in wine - until he passed through Marlborough, New Zealand, on vacation in 2001. But after that, nothing he ever read about wine interested him. It didn't speak to him. It didn't even sound like English. There had to be a better way to approach the subject, he thought. A few years, a few drafts of a proposal, and a few phone calls later, Allan Scott, proprietor of Allan Scott Wines, agreed to let Eric come to his winery and learn all the ins and outs of growing grapes and making wine.

Today Eric lives in Brooklyn, New York. As a staffer or freelancer, Eric's written for The Improper Bostonian, Boston magazine, Drill magazine (defunct), PRWeek, The Wine Report and Wine Spectator. His girlfriend is Carly Tushingham, and his roommate is musician Bill Malchow.

To contact Eric, click here.

If you want to learn more about wine after you read First Big Crush, Eric suggests you check out Gary Vaynerchuk's Wine Library TV or WineSpecator.com