About Us

RealWineLists is a San Francisco-based company with one goal - serving the organizational needs of wine/beverage directors. Our approach is to replace antiquated methods of managing your program through software to improve customer experience, lower cost of product, and dramatically increase efficiency. State-of-the-art online management software provides an entirely new way to develop and manage your program.

Grant Gilligan, CEO and founder of RealWineLists

created RealWineLists while working closely with Master Sommeliers and great wine directors such as Rajat Parr. Seeing that these talented wine directors needed modern tools to be more effective, Grant developed RealWineLists.

Grant's experience in the San Francisco Bay Area's top restaurants started with the Lark Creek Inn in 1990. Following stints at Post Rio and Bix, Grant was a sommelier at Restaurant Aqua in San Francisco under Master Sommelier William Scherer. In 2004, Rajat Parr hired Grant onto the opening team at Michael Mina, San Francisco. Through RealWineLists, Grant revolutionized the way Rajat Parr managed his wine program.

Michael Mina-San Francisco is only the second restaurant to have received Wine Spectator's Grand Award in its first year of operation.

Tony Cha, VP of Sales

was born into the hospitality industry. Cha's family owned and operated two restaurants in New York City. Upon graduating college, Cha took a position as a hotel food and beverage director in Denver, Colorado. Then to Telluride, where his wine career first began to take form. After managing both restaurant locations for Peaks Resort and Spa, Cha helped open 9545 as restaurant manager and wine consultant. In 2001 Cha moved to San Francisco and began his formal wine tutelage at Rubicon, under the guidance of one of the world's top Master Sommeliers, Larry Stone. Cha helped open both new locations for San Francisco's The Slanted Door as their head sommelier. In 2005, Cha joined Rajat Parr at Restaurant Michael Mina as sommelier. Cha subsequently passed the advanced level court of master sommelier's exam on his first try and was named head sommelier at Michael Mina.

Cha has been recognized by publications such as Wine Spectator and Wine and Spirits Magazine, whom named him "Best New Sommelier" of 2006.

Currently, Tony is pursuing his final level of exams to become a Master Sommelier.

Tony holds a BA in Hotel and Restaurant Management from Penn State University

Mark Gilligan, CTO

joined RealWineLists as Chief Architect in October 2007 after running his consulting firm MRG Software. Recently, Mark was principal architect of TimeOut Services' membership management system. TimeOut Services provides workout services for thousands of employees at corporations like Yahoo, Google, Safeway, Cisco Systems, and Tivo. Mark has consulted extensively for financial institutions such as Charles Schwab, Mellon Asset Management, Montgomery Asset Management, and Robertson, Stephens & Company.

Mark is the 2007 USTF National Silver Medalist in the 100 mile trail run.

Mark holds a BS in Finance from Western Washington University.