EDITORIAL BOARD
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Shayn Bjornholm, MS
Having turned a serious eye toward wine only eight years ago, Shayn has attained a level of career achievement on a global scale usually reserved for decades’ worth of effort. Based in Seattle, he is currently the education director for the Washington Wine Commission, the marketing arm for the wines of Washington state. He comes to his current position after having served as wine director at Canlis Restaurant for six years. During his tenure, Canlis garnered numerous awards for its vinous efforts, and two Canlis sommeliers were recognized as Wine & Spirits Top Young Sommeliers in the United States in consecutive years—the only time one restaurant has achieved such a feat. In 2005, Shayn earned the title of Master Sommelier on his first effort, thus becoming only the 10th person in the world to receive the prestigious Remi Krug Cup. Other recognitions have included 2006 Sommelier of the Year from Seattle Magazine , 2005 Regional Wine Professional of the Year from Santé , 2004 Most Trustworthy Sommeliers in the United States from Gentleman’s Quarterly , and 2004 Sommelier of the Year from The Seattle Times . A wine columnist for Seattle Magazine , writing bimonthly articles on the Pacific Northwest’s booming wine industry, Shayn has also been published in The Chalk Hill Sommelier Guide , Sommelier Journal , and Luxe . His love of the stage (he was a New York City actor in another life) and joy in educating people about the wonders of wine has led him to become an entertaining fixture on the national wine festival circuit, having appeared as a panelist at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic, the Kapalua Wine and Food Festival, Cornucopia, and Taste WA. As an expert voice on wine, he has appeared in articles in Food & Wine , Wine Spectator , Food Arts , Wine & Spirits , Gourmet , and Wine Enthusiast . In 2007, Shayn was featured on the Fine Living Network’s “I Want Your Job” as the sommelier everyone wants to be.
Shayn’s most treasured position in the industry, however, is as a wine educator and mentor. He has been a course instructor and examination adjudicator since 2005 for the Court of Master Sommeliers, and he serves as a judge for the Chaines des Rotisseurs’ “Jeune Sommelier du Monde” competitions each year. From 2002 to 2006, he taught the 12-week, classroom-style Level One and Two courses for the International Sommelier Guild. Even amid such honors, it is his one-on-one, under-the-radar mentoring of scores of the best and brightest in the wine industry that stands as Shayn’s highest professional achievement.
Beverley Blanning, MW
Beverley Blanning is an independent wine journalist, based in London. She is a regular feature writer and taster for Decanter magazine and writes for a number of other publications internationally. She contributes to Tom Stevenson’s Wine Report and Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine , on the subjects of both wine and health. She also has a particular interest in organic and biodynamic wine. Beverley is an experienced international competition judge and travels widely. She also presents and educates about wine through consumer tastings, corporate and trade events, and Christie’s Wine Course. She has led consumer wine tours across France, Spain, and South America.
Beverley became a Master of Wine in 2001, passing the examination in her first attempt.
Randy Caparoso
Randy Caparoso has devoted himself to a career managing, judging, speaking, producing, and writing about wine since 1978.
As a restaurant professional, Randy is best known as a founding partner of the Roy’s restaurant group, opening more than 25 of these restaurants from Hawaii to New York between 1988 and 2001. As Roy’s former corporate wine director, he was Santé magazine’s first Wine & Spirits Professional of the Year (1998) and was twice named Restaurant Wine’s Wine Marketer of the Year (1993 and 1999).
After leaving Roy’s, Randy produced three vintages of his own wines as sole proprietor of Caparoso Wines LLC, an alternative label specializing in internationally sourced wines crafted specifically for contemporary cuisines and restaurant by-the-glass programs. In recent years, Randy has consulted for restaurants in Colorado, Florida, and Tennessee while also serving as chef sommelier of the Five Star/Five Diamond Sea Island Resorts in Georgia.
Since 1981, Randy has bylined biweekly newspaper wine columns ( The Honolulu Advertiser ) and served as a contributing editor for numerous industry magazines. Many of his thoughts on food and wine can be gleaned from his home page, CulinaryWineandFood.blogspot.com , as well as on Robin Garr’s Wine Lover’s Page . He also runs the restaurant wine consulting company Wine List Consulting Unlimited at winelistconsulting.com.
Catherine Fallis, MS, ACWP
Catherine Fallis, aka grape goddess®, is the first woman in the world to have earned both the Master Sommelier diploma from the International Court of Master Sommeliers and the Advanced Certified Wine Professional diploma from the Culinary Institute of America. She is founder and president of Planet Grape LLC (www.planetgrape.com), a wine consulting firm providing education, content, sommelier services, and innovative custom cellar systems from Revel Cellars for restaurants, wine bars, retail locations, and personal collections.
Catherine is a contributing editor for Sommelier Journal and Santé, editor-at-large for Touring and Tasting, associate reviewer for appellationamerica.com, frequent contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, and numerous other publications, and co-author most recently of Great Boutique Wines You Can Buy Online (Silverback Books). She is an adjunct instructor at the Culinary Institute of America and the Professional Culinary Institute; a sought-after speaker, event host, and educator for corporations, consumers, and the trade; and one of a handful of female professional sabreurs in the world.
Introduced to wine while backpacking around Europe in her college days, she later honed her skills when she went back to live in Florence and Paris. Upon her return to New York, she worked with chef Alain Sailhac at Le Cirque, Leona Helmsley at the Helmsley Palace Hotel, and Kevin Zraly at Windows on the World. Her last full-time sommelier position was as Michael Mina’s wine director at Aqua in San Francisco. Catherine can be found on the web at www.planetgrape.com, and can be reached by e-mail at grapegoddess@planetgrape.com or at (415) 425-5828.
DAVID FURER, CWE
Since 1986, David Furer has performed many roles in the beverage industry. Work as a buyer in England and U.S. retail shops led to an opportunity as a full-time wine, spirits, and beer judge and writer, contributing to Wine Enthusiast magazine. To deepen his knowledge, he’s enjoyed working at wineries in Germany’s Mosel, Rheingau, and Württemberg regions. For four years, he was the U.K.’s Sherry Ambassador, engaged in promoting this classic wine to the trade, press, and consumers while contributing to the best-selling Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book on this subject; he was also among the first crop of Certified Sherry Educators. He’s led wine classes at the University of Chicago and consumer classes, seminars, and corporate events elsewhere in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain, including guest lectures at Oxford and Cambridge universities. He has appeared on BBC Radio 4 Food Show and BBC Radio Guernsey.
Since 1994, publications in the United States, France, Great Britain, Spain, Norway, Austria, Germany, Italy, Greece, Lebanon, Slovenia, and Australia have carried his reporting, feature articles, and restaurant and drinks reviews. He has contributed the Luxembourg section of Tom Stevenson’s Wine Report since the 2005 edition and authored the 2005 book Wine Places (Mitchell Beazley). Since 2002, he’s been a member of the Circle of Wine Writers, and he currently serves on its Executive Committee; from 2007, he has served on the board of directors of the wine journalist organization FIJEV. David has been nominated for the James Beard Foundation Award for his food and wine writing. He is a judge for several wine and spirit competitions in Europe and the United States, and was the 2007 International Judge for Australia’s Sydney Royal Wine Show.
Trade organizations including the Sherry Institute, Wines from Spain, Germany’s VDP, and Aquitaine North America have retained his services as a consultant and trainer. These associations spurred him in his latest venture, Heartfelt Communications, a partnership with Richard Congreve that has engaged some of Europe’s finest wine regions to promote themselves in a high-level, passionate manner to the press and trade. A native of Santa Cruz, Calif., David travels the world while residing in Europe. He may be e-mailed at df@heartfeltcom.com and Skyped at dfurer.
Joyce Goldstein
Jim Meehan
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Robert Bath, MS
A third generation Californian and Napa Valley resident, Bob Bath passed the Master Sommelier exam in 1993. He has more than 25 years of experience in the wine and food trade, which includes overseeing the Wine Spectator Grand Award program, managing national sales for Shafer Vineyards, and running his own sales and marketing consulting company, the RLB Wine Group. He teaches at the Culinary Institute of America, at the Professional Culinary Institute, in the WSET program, and within the Master Sommelier organization. In 2004, he and his wife Julie established Robert Bath Imports, a specialized portfolio of artisan New Zealand producers.
Jesse Becker, MS, CWE
A native Nebraskan, Jesse Becker, MS, began his wine career at 21, when he took a position as a clerk with a small wine shop in Lincoln. Jesse moved to California’s Napa Valley in 2001, working in the cellars of both Robert Sinskey and Miner Family wineries. During this time, he also poured some of Napa’s top wines for Michael Chiarello's Tra Vigne Cantinetta. Jesse moved to San Francisco in 2002 for a job with retailer K&L Wine Merchants. After taking the opportunity to work the harvest for Burgundy producer Maison Camille Giroud in 2004, he returned to the United States and settled in Chicago. There, he shifted his career focus from retail to hospitality, working as a sommelier with restaurants Charlie Trotter's and NoMI at the Park Hyatt. He committed to education and professional development and passed the Certified Wine Educator exam in 2006.
Jesse then spent two years alongside Bobby Stuckey, MS, at the James Beard Award-winning restaurant Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, Colo. In 2007, he passed the rigorous Master Sommelier exam, making him one of 167 people in the world to achieve this distinction. In 2009, Jesse joined Chef Paul Kulik to open The Boiler Room Restaurant in Omaha, Neb. The Boiler Room is an ingredient-driven restaurant inspired by the “chalkboard menus” of Europe, where plates will vary constantly and emphasis will be placed on seasonal, organic produce and meats. The wine list will focus on French country wines.
Gilles de Chambure, MS
Gilles de Chambure’s roots in wine date back to his childhood in France, where his family had vineyards in Burgundy and his uncle was on the board of a classified-growth château in Bordeaux. He was born in Paris and later lived in Rome. He attended Stowe in England and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., completing a bachelor of arts degree.
Gilles began his career in investment banking working for Lazard Frères in New York and later Morgan Stanley in New York and London. His career in finance offered him an opportunity to taste some of the best wines in the world. Before long, his passion for wine outshined his passion for finance.
In the early 1990s, Gilles became a négociant, bottling vintage Armagnac and Calvados in France and wine in South America. During this time, he traveled extensively through most of the world’s major wine regions. In 1993, he was inducted into the order of Hospitalier de Pomerol by consulting winemaker Michel Rolland.
A position with Robert Mondavi as senior wine educator lured Gilles to Napa Valley in late 1993. He passed the Certified Wine Educator examination in 1999 and was elected to the board of the Society of Wine Educators from 2001 to 2003. He earned the Diploma from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust in London in 1996 and sat the Master of Wine examination in 1998, writing his thesis on California Zinfandels. He completed the Office International du Vin Wine Marketing Program at the University of California-Davis and the Bordeaux Institute d'Oenologie sensory evaluation curriculum. Gilles passed the Master Sommelier examination in 2000.
In 2003, he established his own wine-education consulting service for restaurants, corporations, and private collectors. He became a teacher for the Court of Master Sommeliers and a frequent lecturer at major wine conferences such as the Masters of Food & Wine and the Ahwahnee Vintners’ Holiday in Yosemite, Calif. Today, he dedicates most of his time to the Meadowood Resort in St. Helena, Calif., where he is the director of wine education.
Fred Dexheimer, MS
Master Sommelier Fred Dexheimer is an award-winning sommelier and mixologist. He has spent the last 10 years of his career in New York City, first working as a bartender, cellar rat, sommelier, educator, and wine and beverage director with esteemed restaurant establishments such as Restaurant Daniel, Gramercy Tavern, and the Jean Georges Group. In 2004, he joined highly esteemed chef Laurent Tourondel to become the opening sommelier and beverage director for BLT Steak to rave reviews. When BLT Steak expanded their culinary wings and opened BLT Fish in 2005, Fred took over the full responsibilities of wine and beverage director for the newly formed BLT Restaurant Group. While with BLT, Fred created and managed their national wine and beverage programs, eventually opening and overseeing more than a dozen restaurants with locations in New York City; Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Miami; Atlanta; Las Vegas; Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Puerto Rico, all to wide international acclaim. Over his career, Fred has been awarded a number of accolades, including awards from Wines and Spirits , Starwine , and Star Chefs . In 2007, Fred passed the rigorous Court of Master Sommeliers Master Level Exam, becoming the 78th Master Sommelier in the United States. In addition, Fred has competed in many sommelier competitions, including the “Best Sommelier in the World Competition” as the representative from the United States in 2007 in Rhodes, Greece.
He has offered his expertise and experience to many of the world’s leading wine publications as a taster, commentator, contributor, and panelist. His credits include The New York Times , Food and Wine , Wine and Spirits , Wine Spectator , Beverage Media , Food Arts , Sommelier Journal , and Wine Enthusiast . He has also been featured in many of the world’s leading lifestyle publications, including Time Magazine , Men’s Vogue , Cosmopolitan , Newsweek , and People magazine, and has been featured live on Martha Stewart Radio and MSNBC.
Additionally, Fred is an accomplished mixologist and cocktail enthusiast. He has had several of his cocktail creations published in The New York Times , Food and Wine , Bon Appetit , Cosmopolitan , and Bill Hamilton’s Shaken and Stirred .
Fred is the founder of Juiceman Consulting, a wine, spirits, and cocktail consulting agency. He resides in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Tim Gaiser, MS
Tim Gaiser is Education Chair for the American Chapter of the Court of Master Sommeliers and an adjunct professor at the Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies of the Culinary Institute of America. A frequent contributor to wine and food magazines, he has worked in all sectors of the wine industry.
DAVID GLANCY, MS, CWE
David Glancy, MS, CWE, is the Director of Wine Schools for the Professional Culinary Institute. One of only 96 Americans (and only 167 people worldwide) to have earned the elite title of Master Sommelier, he created the school’s curriculum in conjunction with the Court of Master Sommeliers. He is a member of the Washington, D.C.-based Society of Wine Educators, having passed its highest exam, Certified Wine Educator. David also holds a bachelor's degree in hotel, restaurant, and institutional management from Michigan State University.
During his more than 20 years in the industry, he has worked for some of the largest hotels and food companies in the world, from the Marriott and Hyatt hotels to Spectrum Food and the Kimpton Group. He has been involved in both front- and back-of-house operations, has managed restaurants, and has played a key role in several restaurant openings. Prior to joining PCI, David was a wine and business instructor at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco and operated SFsommelier.com, a wine consultancy.
The Professional Culinary Institute, now operating in California and Florida, is the first school in the world to be approved by the Court of Master Sommeliers. PCI offers the Certified Sommelier Program, preparing students for the Introductory and Certified exams.
Bobby Stuckey, MS
Bobby began his career working in restaurants in Arizona; he moved to Colorado in 1995 to join the staff of The Little Nell restaurant in Aspen as a sommelier. During his five-year tenure, the restaurant received numerous awards for wine and service.
In 2000, Bobby joined chef Thomas Keller at The French Laundry in Yountville, Calif. Within his first year, he received the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Wine Service award, and San Francisco Magazine recognized him as Wine Director of the Year. He also met his future business partner, chef de partie Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson.
Pursuing their vision of opening a neighborhood restaurant reminiscent of the Frascas they had visited in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy, Lachlan and Bobby opened their restaurant, Frasca Food and Wine, in August 2004 in Boulder, Colo. Having researched and traveled throughout Italy many times, both were deeply inspired by this region in particular—the international influences of its cuisine, the profusion of local ingredients in its rustic yet elegant dishes, the passionate relationship between its food and wine, and the gracious hospitality of the locals.
Bobby earned the Master Sommelier diploma from the Court of Master Sommeliers in 2004. In 2008, he was nominated by the James Beard Foundation for the Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional award. This distinction notwithstanding, he walks the dining room nightly, enthusiastically dispensing advice and recommendations and sharing his passion for wine with Frasca guests.
Alder Yarrow
Since January 2004, Alder Yarrow has been publishing Vinography.com , where he writes daily about wines, the wine world, and good restaurants around the globe. San Francisco Magazine called Alder "the wine world's brightest cyberstar."
Started as a personal project to keep track of Alder’s notes about food and wine, Vinography has grown a large and devoted international readership. It was most recently named Best Overall Wine Blog at the 2008 American Wine Blog Awards.
In both his writing and his selected postings of news and miscellany from the world of wine, Alder tries to create an alternative to the traditional sources and styles of wine journalism. Vinography concentrates on sharing the stories, the people, and the passion behind wine from a decidedly down-to-earth perspective, often exploring the quirky or controversial aspects of wine.
Alder currently lives in San Francisco with his wife, Ruth.
Brett Zimmerman, MS
Born and raised in Colorado, Brett Zimmerman took a position with Domaine Select in fall 2007 as its regional manager for the mountains and desert. After completing college with a degree in business administration from the University of Colorado, Brett moved to Chicago, where he accepted a position as a sommelier at the world-acclaimed restaurant Charlie Trotter’s. He then moved to San Francisco to become the sommelier at Aqua.
Brett’s experience in Chicago and San Francisco provided him with the skills and desire to return to Colorado to open his own restaurant with a business partner from Aqua. Mateo, a popular Provençal-style restaurant in Boulder, opened in fall 2000. After dedicating three years to Mateo, Brett took a position with Southern Wine and Spirits to focus his energy on his passion for wine. He spent four years as general manager of Southern's American Fine Wine Division in Colorado.
In spring 2007, Brett achieved the Master Sommelier diploma from the Court of Master Sommeliers.