& Sips By SUSAN HATHAWAY IN SILICON VALLEY management vernacular, it’s one heck of a stretch goal: Make the T. J. RODGERS, legendary CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, knows PINOTS and he’s on a mission to produce the FINEST VARIETAL IN THE WORLD. August/September 2014 75 best pinot noir in the world. This persnickety grape typically creates apoplexy for wineries striving to bend it to their will, but to chip czar T.J. Rodgers, it’s just another task to be researched, planned and executed—like designing the programmable circuits his San Jose company, Cypress Semiconductor, has been making since 1982. To his earlier titles such as “doctor”—he earned a Stanford Ph.D in electrical engineering in 1975—“founder” and “CEO,” he added “winemaker” upon creating Clos de la Tech, encompassing his vineyards and winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains that started as landscaping around his Woodside home and turned into a passion. “Once you get to eight figures (of investment), it’s no longer a hobby,” he states in his usual forthright manner. Like attracting magnets, Rodgers instantly adheres to huge challenges. Reading, doing experiments and looking for new solutions to solve problems are in his DNA. “That’s how I do everything in my life—everything,” emphasizes the muscular blond. “I like studying. I like learning. I like knowledge. Winemaking was a natural for me. The thing I discovered was that wine is an extraordinarily complicated topic.” That makes it all the better. Rodgers’ wine quest is a story that mirrors his business career and is the stereotypical Silicon Valley script: Smart, driven individual comes to the promised land to make a mark, then deals with adversities and rivals but keeps pushing forward toward the brass ring. In neither case—business nor winemaking—has the end chapter been written, which just makes the tale more fascinating. » Clockwise from top left: Domaine Lois Louise Cote Sud; the gravity flow winery at Domaine Lois Louise, with three adjacent 300-foot-long caves; Clos de la Tech pinot noir with signature silicon chip embedded in bottle neck; Rodgers checks a cluster of grapes for a cooling experiment with an on-site air conditioner.
South Bay Accent - Aug/Sep 2014
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