Kenan began his career in wine after discovering a passion for it through working in restaurants as a server and bartender in Houston, Texas. He had the opportunity to learn through tasting and selling wines alongside some of the city’s top sommeliers, then as a Restaurant Manager and Wine Director, he had the chance to further his exposure and excitement for wines as he crafted wine lists for an array of different cuisines, working alongside talented chefs to produce monthly wine dinners and build loyal clientele.

After making the move from restaurant to retail sales, Kenan continued his education and broadened his palate as a sales person and wine buyer at the Houston Wine Merchant, one of the oldest and most respected Independently owned Wine Retailers in the Southern US. Studying alongside some of the best buyers and sommeliers in the Texas wine scene, he earned his Certified Specialist of Wine and had the opportunity to taste 50-125 unique wines each day, 5 days a week, over the span of nearly three years, selling millions of dollars of wine a bottle at a time to some of Houston’s highest end clientele. He also helped host hundreds of Tastings alongside top Winemakers and wrote numerous newsletter articles highlighting special wines from all across the world during his tenure at the Houston Wine Merchant, developing relationships with Wine Growers and Producers all across the world.

While still a buyer at the Houston Wine Merchant, Kenan took a vacation to Washington State that would change his life. On this trip, he visited his friends made during years as a Wine buyer in restaurants and retail, the Hedges Family, where he spent 10 days helping them during Harvest and crush in 2010. This experience was his first foray into wine production, and it lit a passion for Vineyard growing and wine production that would change his entire trajectory. After that fateful Harvest, Kenan went back to Texas and spent a year preparing to make the jump from Retail to Production, and in late 2011 was offered a job working in the Vineyard again with his good friends at the Hedges Family Estate on Red Mountain.

Working in the Vineyard with the Hedges Family, and in the cellar with his friends at Four Feathers Winery in Prosser and Dunham Cellars in Walla Walla cemented Kenan’s love for grape growing and wine production. This led him to write his first business plan to start his own Vineyard and Winery on Red Mountain which led to a loan offer from a local Agriculture bank to venture out with his own endeavor. Kenan ultimately lost the opportunity to plant that vineyard in Washington when a big Napa Valley winery swooped in with cash and bought the property out from under him, but his desire to grow grapes and make wine remained.

After a 4 year break from all things wine (to focus on another business he started and built), Kenan returned to his original passion in the summer of 2019 with the purchase of Deer Creek Vineyards in Southern Oregon’s historic Illinois Valley. Upon purchasing the property, he immediately began transitioning the farming from conventional methods to using nothing but organic inputs and implementing regenerative agriculture and other more sustainable practices.