When you’re an experienced traveler, your bucket list starts to dwindle with all the destinations you’ve visited. It soon becomes more about authentic and trophy experiences.
The country of Georgia’s wine-making traditions goes back about 8,000 years. From one generation to the next the custom of preparing wine in clay pots called qvevri has been passed down for centuries.
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CHEF LUCIANA BERRY
Brazilian-born Chef Luciana Berry grew up in Salvador da Bahia in a traditional South American family, sharing a passion for food. She began a career in catering in London at one of the Harrow School boarding houses, opening her own catering company, Catering on the Hill, in 2005. She serves as an ambassador of Brazilian cuisine in Europe, showcasing ingredients integral to the culture’s culinary traditions. She also teaches a new generation of chefs at West London College and Langley College. Most recently she won Top Chef Brazil in 2020 and is competing in Bravo’s Top Chef: World All-Stars in 2023.
JONATHAN PHANG
Renowned for his role on the Good Food channel’s Market Kitchen show, Jonathan Phang judged and cooked various recipes, reported on food trends and reviewed books for the show’s three-year run. He is also known for the Food Network UK’s Jonathan Phang’s Caribbean Cookbook and the Travel Channel’s Jonathan Phang’s Gourmet Trains. He started his career as a talent manager for some of the world’s most influential fashion models, including Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks and Liv Tyler. His passion for cooking comes from his childhood in London in a Chinese-Caribbean household, where food was his family’s primary focus. He entered the Good Food channel’s The People’s Cookbook contest with one of his mother’s recipes and won.
CHEF MASSIMO CAPRA
Canadian celebrity Chef Massimo Capra is best known for his roles as host on his own television series “Gourmet Escapes,” judge on “Chopped Canada” and chef-host of “Restaurant Makeover” – the last two both popular on the Food Network (USA). He is the owner of Massimo’s Italian at the Sheraton on the Falls Hotel and Boccone at the Toronto Pearson International Airport, as well as his namesake restaurant, Capra’s Kitchen, in his hometown of Mississauga, Ontario. Chef Capra is the author of “One Pot Italian” and “3 Chefs: The Kitchen Men,” which received the gold Canadian Culinary Book Award in 2011.
CHEF RICK MOONEN
Chef Rick Moonen is an acclaimed restaurateur and cookbook author passionate about the sustainability seafood movement. In 2008, motivated by this passion, he published “Fish Without a Doubt.” In 2005, Moonen opened Rick Moonen’s RM Seafood and RX Boiler Room restaurants at Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, showcasing his commitment to sustainability without foregoing culinary creativity and innovation. Chef Moonen has been featured in Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, Saveur, Food Arts, USA Today, and Travel + Leisure. He has also made frequent appearances on the Food Network’s “Best Thing I Ever Ate,” “Top Chef” and “Top Chef Masters” series.
TASTES & TRADITIONS EXPERT JENNIFER MERIÑO
Jennifer Meriño is a caviar master and the co-owner of Kenoz, the southernmost caviar in the world, in Chile, alongside her husband and business partner Chef Rudi Scholdis. Kenoz produces the three most valuable varieties of caviar – Beluga, Oscietra and Sevruga sturgeons – from the pure waters of Patagonia. Of all three, Oscietra is one of the most prized, characterized by light overtones of Chilean butter and European hazelnuts. At Kenoz, she works with state-of-the-art technology to produce sustainably sourced caviar, keeping natural resources in mind while meeting the demand for high-quality caviar. Jennifer Meriño often shares her favorite recipes featuring caviar on the Kenoz website.
DIGBY FINE ENGLISH CEO TREVOR CLOUGH
Trevor Clough was born in the United States and raised in Germany. He is the co-founder, CEO and head blender at Digby Fine English, a boutique producer of sparkling wine based in West Sussex. Digby Fine English is the first of its kind blending house in England, sourcing their grapes from local growers in Dorset, Kent and Sussex. Prior to establishing the winery, he was a management consultant in London in the travel/transport, retail and financial services industries. He holds a master’s in business administration from the London Business School and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Economics from Brown University.
SOMMELIER CAROLYN CORYELLE
A California-based sommelier, Carolyn Coryelle studied wine marketing in Santa Rosa and is the former owner of a 40-acre winery in Sonoma County. In the late 1990s, she cleared a site in the coastal hills of Sonoma and planted six acres of Syrah 1,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean. She had such great success that Tin Barn Vineyards soon began sourcing her Syrah for their wines in 2000. After that, she expanded to growing Pinot Noir. She spent the bulk of her wine career with Jackson Family Wines, which produces 14 different brands, including labels from France, Italy, Chile and Australia. She also worked as the Direct Sales Manager at Kendall-Jackson.
ATTIMO WINERY CEO JON SCHLEGEL
Jon Schlegel completed his first dream of opening a restaurant by age 30 when he founded Snooze, an A.M Eatery where the motto was, “It only takes a moment to make a difference.” He then moved onto his second dream – living abroad before he turned 40. He and his family moved to Monforte d’Alba in Piemonte, Italy, in 2013 and settled on the Ginestra Hill with their own small Barolo vineyard. There, Jon worked and learned from wine producing families with generations of experience. Returning to his native home of Denver, he wanted to bring back a piece of Italy. This is when Attimo Winery was born, the name meaning “moment” in Italian.
DIGBY FINE ENGLISH BRAND MANAGER JAMES BARNETT
James Barnett has worked as the Brand Manager at Digby Fine English since 2021 and has over 10 years of experience working in several aspects of the wine industry. His experience ranges from commercial sales in Europe, the UK and New Zealand to winemaking in Italy and France. His past experience also includes working for Dhall & Nash Fine Wines in Auckland, Te Kairanga Vineyards in Martinborough, and Corney & Barrow Ltd, Quintessentially Wine and The Sampler Wine Merchants in London. He has been a sommelier at the Royal Automobile Club in London, a cellar hand at Chateau Reynier in Bordeaux and an intern at Cantine Lavorata in Italy.
CHEF VIET PHAM
Chef Viet Pham, best known as the 2014 winner of “Iron Chef America,” grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area with parents who loved food and cooking. He graduated from the California Culinary Academy in 2002. While attending school, he interned at the Michelin-starred Fifth Floor Restaurant in San Francisco under the award-winning chef Laurent Gras. In July 2009 with fellow Chef Bowman Brown, he opened Forage Restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 2011, Chef Pham was named “Best Chef” by Salt Lake City Magazine and “Best New Chef” by Food & Wine. He competed in Food Network’s “Next Food Network Star” in 2013 and appeared on “Kitchen Inferno” in 2014.
CHEF PETER CAMPBELL
Chef Peter Campbell, a passionate master in pizza, has made several television appearances, including on the Food Network, Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives (2016), Guy’s Grocery Games (2017 & 2018), Andrew Zimmern Cooks (2018), DDD Takeout (2020) and GGG: Delivery (2021). In 2021, he launched an interactive cooking class called Pizza with Pete as he continues to create deeper connections through an enthusiasm for pizza and hospitality. Chef Campbell began operating Red Wagon Pizza Company, a local pizzeria in Minneapolis, MN, as a mobile, wood-fired oven pizzeria in 2012 with his wife, Jacquie, at The Linden Hills Farmer’s Market. In 2014, he opened his first stand-alone restaurant. Most recently, Red Wagon Pizza Company began shipping bake-at-home pizzas nationwide, sharing Chef Campbell’s family tradition with the entire US.
CHEF BOBBY MARCOTTE
Chef Bobby Marcotte is the creator of the award-winning Hop + Grind restaurant, as well as the Rise + Grind and Barn at Merry Hill. His restaurants have been featured multiple times on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and he was personally invited by Guy Fieri himself to compete five times on Guy’s Grocery Games: Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives Tournament. Chef Marcotte has also competed on Tournament of Champions and Fire Masters Canada. He became Executive Chef of The Tuckaway Tavern & Butchery in 2013 and under his leadership, the restaurant has earned several accolades from “New Hampshire Magazine,” “Spoon University” and “Yankee Magazine.” It has also been named one of the Food Network's “Best Steakhouses in America.” He started in restaurants at 14 years old as a dishwasher and in just three years moved up to sous chef, eventually becoming head chef by 21 years old.
CHEF SYLWIA STACHYRA
Winner of Top Chef Poland 7th Edition, and the only one from the Poland competition to go on to Top Chef World All-Stars 2023, Chef Sylwia Stachyra is considered the most influential woman in the Polish Hospitality Industry. She runs CookShe, a cooking school and consultancy that offers workshops, training, recipes and food design, and more. She trained at Gordon Ramsay's Savoy Grill and studied at Bournemouth College. Chef Stachyra has achieved the highest chef’s degree – NVQ3 – run two restaurants and created several successful concepts for gastronomic businesses. She spent years traveling, including England, Turkey, Italy, Monaco, Spain, Japan and Cyprus, and cooking on yachts, which made a significant impact on her cooking style.
