When did you first become interested in wine? When was your first taste? How was the experience?
My parents drank wine everyday at home and apparently I accidentally took a sip when I was a toddler from a glass left on the table. I don't remember if I liked it! But it took me a while to love wine. I use to drink beer with my friends as a teenager. At around 24 a friend from the call center where I used to work made me discover Burgundy. By myself I started to go to a wine bar that was also a bookstore/wine shop in le Marais. The sommelier there gave me a taste of lots of different things but I remember buying a bottle of Chateau de Belcier, Cotes de Castillon. That was the first bottle I ever bought on my own.

What brought you into the winemaking industry?
Since I was working in restaurants in NY, I had no choice than learning more and more. Plus my parents started out as just wine drinkers and they became more "amateurs' of great wines, starting to visit the producers and giving me tips about what was good.

For which wines is your company best known and respected? Can you tell us a bit about these particular wines?
We are supporting family owned vineyards which are working organically from the growing of the vines to the winemaking process. They are a smaller size, therefore they should have a better control of the quality and they are not trying to create a universal taste for their wines. We taste everything we buy. We don't want to have a brand name. We want to make people discover different taste in wine.

What's the difference in the winemaking process between your organic and non-organic wines?
Organic wine by itself doesn't mean much if the winemaker doesn't go all the way through during the winemaking process. So, the first step includes using grapes grown without the use of pesticides and herbicides. But if they go one step further it means that they will use indigenous yeast from the grapes or so called "natural" during the fermentation. They will not filter their wine, and they won't use egg fining. Use minimal amount of Sulfur and not so much oak flavor as well.

Which is your favorite type to drink with dinner? Which one do you like to drink on special occasions?
Depending on the food, I would say I am a big Rhone wine drinker, as well as Languedoc or Roussillon because they use some of the same varieties. On special occasions I definitely like drinking grower Champagne like Anselme Selosse, to be precise.

If you don't order wine at a restaurant or bar, which beverage do you choose?
Probably beer and water. But also it depends on the food again. If I am going for Mexican food I will have a margarita.

In your opinion, which country, other than the U.S., makes the best wine? Why?
Well, trying not to be biased, so putting France also outside the scale. I would for sure consider Italy, because they have been making wines for centuries. And I think I can relate to them as similar to French wines like piedmont for burgundy, Tuscany for Bordeaux, Southern Italy for the Rhone…

What's the secret to the most delicious wine?
It is not to try to make something artificial. I think wine at the end is fermented grape juice, so the quality of the grapes have to be top. I think a great wine is 90 % work on the vineyard and 10% in the cellar.

What's your best wine-drinking memory? What was the occasion?
My favorite wine ever tried was from Domaine Prieure Roch Les hautes Mazieres 1999. It was vinified by Philippe Pacalet, who is an encyclopedia in wine making. Henri Roch the owner, has been one of the co-owner of Domaine de La Romannee Conti which is probably the best wine in the world but it's too expensive for me. I never had the luck to try it. So Prieure Roch vineyards are adjacent. They are completely under rated. The Occasion was just a BYOB dinner with some friends at a restaurant. But I also had other vintages at my favorite restaurant in Paris called le Verre Vole.

Do you have any favorite wine gadgets? Are there any new ones on the market? If so, what are they and where can people get them?
I like those portable decanters you can plug on the bottle. I have tried them and they work. You use them to aerate the wine when it is tight. You can buy them in many wine stores there is one called Soiree, and another one called Vinturi.

Do you have any basic "rules" for wine drinking, i.e. tips on how to pair your wines with certain foods?
I think your taste matters the most, nobody can take that away from you. If you want to drink red with fish instead of white, why not? Then if you want to educate yourself you should read books about it. Like for example, to know that the reds from the Loire work better because you could chill them and they are lighter body.

What are your three best tips, tricks or techniques for wine lovers?
For sure, knowing when the wine is corked because many bottles are.
Learn how to taste and smell by bringing some oxygen while tasting so you can get all the complexity of the wine.
Always take a step back when you try a new wine if you don't like it. Try to make sure if there is something wrong with it. Maybe decant the wine and go back to it later.
Wine changes a lot after being opened for a while.