Derek grew up in Toronto and went to Chile to work as a ski coach during his summers at university. After a Masters at Columbia U. in a subject overlapping wine chemistry and viticulture: Comparative Literature, Derek returned to Chile and met and married winemaker and Garage partner Pilar Miranda. During early work growing a creative agency, with clients in wine he decided that what the wine trade really needed was more small players amidst so much BIG, and so he began transforming the family hobby of a half dozen barrels in the garage into a business surprisingly named: the Garage Wine Company.

A misfit in blue-chip Chile, soon he found his way South to the under-appreciated old vines of the Maule where he has spent fifteen years building a firm working small parcels reviving old vineyards in the Secano Interior, with regenerative agriculture and the community.