Meet Hari Mahesh, Owner of Artisan Vino
Introduce yourself and tell us about your journey through the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa?
I completed my bachelors in Engineering from IIT chennai, India. Hawaii was my maiden voyage on an airplane. It was a fascinating journey. I was exhilarated when I got the news that the University of Hawaii gave me admission into the Masters program in Ocean Engineering along with a full scholarship. The next thing that came to my mind was how to get there. This was in the late 80s where we didn’t have an established Internet that we have today. I went to the U.S embassy in Chennai and opened up the map of the United States and started looking around for Hawaii. I couldn’t find it on the continental USA and finally my eyes drifted to the west of California and found a small dot on the map and there it was!! I thought I would have to go on a ship to get there before I spoke to the travel agent. I landed in UH and I got a warm welcome all around. People were very nice and showed me around the campus, department etc. I loved UH and Hawaii in general. We are coming back to the island to live part-time in the winter.
If you had to take one UH class again, which one would you take and why?
Oceanography would be something I would like to take again. There is so much happening weather wise, La-Nina, ElNino effects. It's still fascinating to me how nature/the ocean works.
Tell us about a favorite memory or experience from your time at UH that has stuck with you?
While at school, one day I noticed a bus that had a sign “Circle Island”. I thought it was a place in Oahu called “Circle Island”. One day I dared myself to see “Circle Island”. I took the bus and it went for hours and I didn’t reach “Circle Island”. When the bus reached Laie, I dared myself to walk up to the driver and asked him “When will Circle Island arrive?”. He stared at me and told me “It’s right here”. I said thank you and got down. Once I got down, it hit me that “Circle Island” bus is indeed that goes around the island. Later all my friends/colleagues gave me the nickname “Circle Island” guy. To this day, I get so much laughter when I mention this to all my friends on the island and on the mainland.
What interested you the most about the winery business?
After graduating from UH, We moved to Silicon Valley for work. During this journey of working and living in Silicon Valley, I fell in love with wine in California. After a couple of decades, I thought to myself, while I love drinking wine, how would it be to grow our own grapes and make our own wine. It was a simple desire and we started looking for properties in California first, when nothing worked out. My wife, Paru, found the beautiful Willamette Valley in Oregon which is a world renowned place for Burgundian Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. In 2015 we moved to a small town McMinnville in Oregon. We planted our vines in 2017 from scratch. Our first vintage was in 2020. Our label is “Smera Vineyards”, “Smera” means smile in Sanskrit. We produce both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. This is available on artisanvino.com, a platform I built to distribute boutique wines from Willamette Valley.
What advice would you give current UH students hoping to start their own business?
Any business you start, you need to be passionate about the area of your business, which in my case was Wine and Grapes.
Which wines would you recommend to a new customer?
Any of the wines from artisanvino.com. The wines on the platform are hand picked.