Cheers to new adventures…

There’s something to be said for the simple enjoyment of walking through nature, listening to the music of the birds and the wind. Trailing your fingers across a trembling leaf and feeling the ridges of veins underneath your fingers is a magic all its own. Of course, humankind has done much to tame the wildness of our planet. For millennia we have slowly imposed our own order in the alleged chaos of nature, but there have been some truly fantastic things to come of that. I like to think that wine is perhaps one of the most fantastic.

An intersection of agriculture, art, history, and science, wine is a subject loaded with mystery and confusion, excitement and disappointment, passion and heartbreak. In my mind, there are very few other human creations that can contain everything that wine and growing wine grapes contains. I might be biased.

The long and short of it is, this website and blog is a way for me to organize my thoughts about and share them. I am a Certified Sommelier pursuing my Advanced certification with the Court of Master Sommeliers. It’s a lot of words to say I love wine and have chosen to make it my career. I have no real watershed moment surrounding wine. In fact, I sort of fell into this industry sideways, on a meandering path to nowhere in particular as I stumbled through life in my late twenties. Many people in the hospitality industry find themselves doing the same, just as there are many who have pursued that illusive mistress, wine, doggedly from the time they could legally walk into a restaurant and order a glass (or even well before that).

My driving passion in the world of wine is education. Demystification, if you will. In a time where wine drinking is becoming less and less popular (alcohol consumption overall is down, especially in the United States), I have found that those who are interested in drinking tend to shy away from wine for reasons that really should shock no one. The aura of pretentious, snobby sommeliers and self-professed connoisseurs has followed the wine industry for decades, driving away earnest and excited consumers. The past 10 years or so, there has been a shift in attitudes. More dudes with flannels making natural wines and eschewing the haughty attitudes normally associated with industry professionals. More wine bars hunting for local, small producers at affordable prices for the everyman. More young sommeliers who are unable to easily hop the pond and explore Europe like our predecessors in the 70s and 80s and instead looking for unique experiences at home that they can share with their customers. It’s an exciting time for wine lovers! While many sought after labels are still out of reach for so many, there are a plethora of extremely high quality and affordable options just waiting to be discovered.

I hope that by sharing my point of view, my studies, and the wines I get to taste as well as the food I enjoy, you will come away with a new perspective and maybe a new bottle to try for yourself. Cheers!