Pierce College Honors Wine Journalist Who Grew Up in Puyallup

For many, the world of wine is the stuffy and intimidating province of the elite – a view that Alan Kropf is determined to change.

Kropf is president and founder of Mutineer Magazine, a nationally distributed publication that explores fine beverages from wine to coffee to spirits, and everything in between. The 75,000-readership quarterly favors a humorous, irreverent edge that makes fine beverages approachable to adults in their 20s and 30s, the demographic collectively called Millenials.

Pierce College honored Kropf as one of its three Distinguished Alumni for 2013 at a dinner on the Puyallup campus on Wednesday, April 17. 

The two other Distinguished Alumni were L. Denice Randle, director of education and employment programs at Making a Difference in Community (MDC) in Tacoma, and Kurt Fletter, co-owner and co-founder of Power Plastics Corp. in Portland. (Read more about Randle and Fletter, both Lakes High School grads, at Lakewood-JBLM patch.com.)

The college awarded the designation based on the alumni's professional achievements and community service. 

Kropf, 29, grew up in Puyallup and now lives in Napa Valley, Calif.

The Distinguished Alumni designation is just the latest of several honors for Kropf.

Forbes magazine, Zagat’s and Wine & Spirits Magazine are among the publications that have named Kropf to their lists of up-and-coming trailblazers under the age of 30 in the wine, beverage or culinary industries.

Kropf holds certifications as a sommelier, beer server and bartender. He worked as a sommelier overseeing the wine program at the exclusive Beverly Hills Hotel, where he poured wine for celebrities and politicians, including Hillary Clinton.

He helped Chef Gordon Ramsay open his signature restaurant in the London West Hollywood hotel in 2008. The same year, Kropf launched Mutineer Magazine, which achieved national distribution in less than a year.

“Wine is such a soulful, artistic product. You might not be able to go to France this weekend, but you can taste France in a glass of French wine,” Kropf said.

At Mutineer, he said, “We try and create those connections and introduce people to the amazingness that is wine and fine beverages.”

Today, Kropf and Mutineer Magazine use a variety of formats to reach audiences, whether documenting the magazine's water relief effort in Nepal or sponsoring an online Kickstarter campaign to fund a how-to job guide in the beverage industry.

“The Millenials, the young people of today, are more positioned to experience wine because of the emergence of digital and social media, which has broken down the media barriers,” Kropf said.

Kropf was a junior at Rogers High School in Puyallup when he entered the dual-credit Running Start program at Pierce College. The program allowed him to simultaneously earn a high school diploma and Associate in Arts and Science degree in 2001.

At the age of 17, he became one of the youngest student body presidents ever of the Pierce Puyallup campus.

“There’s no way I could do the stuff that I’m doing today without having the Pierce College student leadership experience under my belt,”  Kropf said.

To read more about the 2013 Distinguished Alumni, go to: http://tinyurl.com/2013dalumni