BIOS

Tom Cook:
I have worked in the food and beverage industry for 30 years.  You might say that I have earned my credentials as a wine critic through my life’s working experiences.  When all my friends were drinking beer and getting drunk, I was drinking Burgundies and Cabernets after work with my colleagues.  I have been working in restaurants since I was sixteen.

In my first job as a waiter, I was taught how to cook tableside.  It was here that I began to get exposed to fine wines and some of the more pleasurable things in life.  I was barely old enough to drink legally, yet I was hooked.  Someone introduced me to a Corton-Charlemagne. The experience of tasting a white wine that tasted of fresh strawberries, changed me forever.  My thirst for knowledge about wine has continued since that day.

Shortly after this time, I attended and graduated The Culinary Institute of America.  My work as a chef continued to grow my palate as I was exposed to a wider variety of foods and wines.  My passions eventually lead me to leave the kitchen and move back into the dining room.  Here my exposure to wine began to blossom.  Experiences lead me through working introductions to such people as Kevin Zraly, Bobby Flay, Tom Collichio, Andre Soltner and Walter Schieb.  Some of my more pleasurable moments have been working wine tastings/dinners. The most notable events have been; a dinner tasting for 3 decades of Opus One, Quintessa, Vineyard 29, a vertical tasting of Chateau Palmer back to 1895 and a dinner tasting event of 1929 Bordeaux’s.

As a very dear friend once told me, Life is all about “moments.”  Special moments that forever live within our memories to create the fabric of our lives.  So often I have had people tell me they have a bottle that they are saving for a special occasion.  I tell them that the bottle is the occasion.  My hope is that in some small way my experiences will help guide you to be able to create your own “moments.”  Good wine and good friends to all.