About Us

Company

Tastevin was created by Labrador OmniMedia, a software company dedicated to re-inventing on-premise beverage sales. Founded by a team of beverage and software industry vets, Labrador focuses obsessively on creating a user experience that makes our beverage lists a joy for both the diner and restaurateur to use. It also means unmatched integration so that our clients don’t have to think about their tools: they can just get on with their jobs.

With decades of experience in on-premise wine sales, Labrador’s founders used their insight to create the most dynamic, comprehensive digital wine list solution in the marketplace. Easy to use in an approachable format, Tastevin instantly disseminates tasting notes, labels, photos and other rich media to iPads, integrates directly with all major POS systems to gather real-time sales data previously impossible to attain on-premise, eliminates embarrassing out-of-stock situations, streamlines inventory management, helps boost slow-moving inventory, aids staff trainings, promotes customer loyalty, and saves time, money and paper.

Our Team

About john tastevin

John Jordan

Chairman of the Board

John Jordan is co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Labrador. An avid pilot, during college he continued to feed his passion for flying and received his Airline Transport Pilot License at age 23 (minimum age requirement). John is a graduate of Occidental College in Los Angeles and holds a JD from Empire College School of Law. While studying law, John also attended graduate school and received a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of San Francisco. A family tradition of naval military service also led John to join the U.S. Navy Reserve in his 20s, where he rose to the rank of Commander. After passing the California Bar Examination in December 2002, John joined the Santa Rosa-based law firm where he’d worked as a clerk in college, then opened his own private firm in Sonoma County in 2004. John enjoys flying his Piper Cub and fishing for bass on Jordan lake. He also serves as a professor at the Empire College School of Law, and speaks German and Russian. He shares his hillside home with Labradors he adopted from a local shelter.

About josh tastevin

Josh Hermsmeyer

CEO

Josh Hermsmeyer is co-founder and CEO of Labrador. With 10 years in the wine industry on the grower and supplier side, Josh’s passion lies at the intersection of wine and technology. Josh has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Wine & Spirits, Wines and Vines, The Press Democrat, North Bay Biz and Fast Company Now. He has given talks on social media and marketing at UC Davis, Sonoma State University, The Wine Industry Technology Symposium, The Mendocino Winegrape Commission, and Women for Wine Sense. Josh has also written for Vineyard & Winery Management, Wines and Vines and co-authored a chapter on direct-to-consumer marketing and Wine 2.0 for Professor Liz Thach’s Wine: A Global Business, the authoritative academic text on the wine industry. He served on the Sonoma County Wine Library Associates Board of Directors from 2007-2008, and was elected President for the 2008 year. Josh was trained at UC Davis, where he studied Economics and Winemaking. He lives at and manages Rebecca’s Vineyard, a 17 acre pinot noir vineyard in the Russian River Valley.

About brad

Brad Jansen

Director of Customer Experience

About vlad

Vlad Shvedov

Lead Developer

Vlad Shvedov is the Lead Developer for Labrador OmniMedia. Vlad started with programming from ZX Spectrum 16K’s Basic and then Zilog Z80 Assembler on ZX 128K and never stops since then. Vlad's interests are maintainable and distributed Web Applications, Natural Language Processing, generative systems, hardware prototyping and woodworking.