There are days when Jeff Zacharia, Class of 1983, samples 100 different wines.

Before lunch.

Evaluating more vintages in a few hours than most people try in a year, or even a lifetime, is all part of being president of Zachys, a legendary Scarsdale, New York, retail and mail-order wine emporium. It offers more than 5,000 selections and reportedly does in excess of $30 million in business a year.

"I took a lot of notes at Kenyon my freshman year, but by the time I was a senior I took very few because I could absorb the information a lot better," Zacharia explains. "It's the same thing with wine. I've tasted enough wine over the years to form an opinion more quickly. It's just part of my job."

Jeff's grandfather, Zachy Zacharia, opened the business in 1944. Zachys sold hard liquor only, and it wasn't until the late 1960s that wine made an appearance on the store's shelves. Jeff's father, Don, took a chance on three cases of Gevry-Chambertin after a salesman claimed wine would be a popular new trend. Don, concerned it wouldn't sell, priced each bottle at just twenty cents over the wholesale price. The wine was gone in three days.

While he was a Kenyon student, Jeff got a taste of the wine business during the summer, working at such well-known French wine destinations as Chateau Greysac, Chateau Meyney, Perrier-Jouet, and Chateau Haut Brion, where he is remembered for introducing Frisbee to the vineyard workers.

Zacharia fell in love with the business when he gave it a try after graduation. "After about a week, I found that everyone in the business - from the consumers to the wine producers - were genuinely nice people. I loved it," he says. "I learned to study a lot of different disciplines at Kenyon, and the wine business was just like learning another new discipline. I felt prepared."