ABOUT

Our Background

I started the group Bon Vivant Gourmets to share with the world a culture of living life better through experiencing higher quality food, wine, and travel. I have worked as a sous-chef for a 5 star international French hotel chain where I learned the basics of a professional kitchen. I then spent a year in Provence as a private chef for a family. In this position, I learned the basics of local Provencal and French cuisines and began my wine and bon vivant lifestyle training. I then subsequently attended university and became an international English professor for foreign ministries of education, where I spent my free time indulging in the best wines and foods in all corners of the world....this, more than anything, significantly honed and trained my palate through a concentrated and focused effort in each situation. I am certified as an advanced wine expert and work professionally in the field as a wine expert, cuisine consultant, and professional writer.

The group consists of people met along the journey of life who understand what it means to live life as a bon vivant. Their experience is as in-depth and as varied as my own.

General Perspectives

We believe life is too short to drink bad wine or eat anything that is less than unbelievably exceptional. We want to share with the world the little bits of pleasure that make life so much more enjoyable! We may also include a few places to avoid if the insult is worth mentioning, just to be balanced.

On Gastronomy

The greatest gastronomic pleasures come from places where the ingredients are pure and the chef(s) possesses a mastery of technique, chemistry, methodology, and creativity. We want to showcase restaurants that go far above and beyond the exceptional. This could be as simple as a small pizza restaurant that makes its own Mozzarella each morning and imports their tomatoes from Italy; or a chef who grows his herbs and vegetables in his own back garden and ages his own meats. Some places will be icons in their own right and others are perhaps just becoming established. If the cuisine moves us (perhaps to tears), provides an epiphany, makes one contemplate the beauty of life, or ingrains itself so permanently in the mind that the flavors reappear in dreams, then it will most likely appear here.

On Oenology

We believe that life is too short to drink bad wine. Following this paradigm, we have found that some of the most exquisite wines are those that best represent their varietal characteristics, terroir, vintner's style, creativity, and ability and a certain experiential wisdom in the vineyard. This often happens, and is our preference, with smaller family owned and operated vineyards and wineries. They often produce smaller lots and have complete responsibility of the vineyard management, thereby allowing for greater control over quality. We also love finding wineries that are deeply invested in green/natural endeavors, are S.I.P. certified (Sustainability in Practice), organic, and/or biodynamic. Then there are those wineries that just have heart....and often cats and dogs. These are the wineries where the people involved love and respect a certain lifestyle that is the wine culture, and their identity. They often share their pets and lives with you over a glass or two of wine. Many have selected to be very specific; perhaps focusing on an area of specialization such as the stylistic variations of a varietal or an innovative/avant-gardist vinification technique, or are extremely site specific: perhaps producing a lot from just the end of the rows where the roses are planted to impart that specific element into the wine. Some of the wines we share may be recognizable or even corporate owned - however, if we are sharing them, there is something very unique and special about them.