Severine Stephenson, Salud! A Wine Experience™ founder and wine edutainer has over 20 years in the hospitality industry as a caterer, hotelier and corporate meeting planner. Séverine’s passion for food and wine began at an early age. Her earliest memory of cooking was when she was around 5 years old; she was standing on a small step stool grilling tortillas on a gas stove over an open flame by hand. By age 10 she was cooking more often and by 13 she could take a recipe, enhance it and make it her own.  Half Spanish, half Anglo and raised in the South; she experienced many different types of food, beverages and cooking styles at an early age. To her, a recipe was a guideline and she wasn’t afraid to experiment.

She turned her love of food into a successful catering career where she worked with some talented and incredibly patient chefs. Constantly striving to increase her culinary knowledge; she was the first in the kitchen when new menu items were introduced asking about the ingredients and the types of cooking methods that were used. Her first experience with high end wines occurred in the late 90’s when she was the catering manager for The Crescent Club, a private dining club in Dallas, Texas. The chef would bring the catering team into the kitchen to taste some of the more high-end wines on the clubs’ list before using it in a reduction sauce for an entrée or in a chocolate sauce for a dessert. Seeing firsthand how wine paired with food was exhilarating and Séverine was totally hooked.

While she had planned menus and experienced some incredible wines, she was still a little intimidated by the pairing process. It wasn’t totally clear until she met winemaker, Bo Barrett of Chateau Montelena at a winemaker’s diner who simplified it for her. In his no nonsense, laid back way he said, “…wine is about what you like; if you prefer white wine over red, drink it - who cares if you’re eating meat because ultimately it’s up to what tastes good to you.” That was exactly what she needed to hear and her journey as a self proclaimed "wineaux-in-training" began.

Séverine has traveled and enjoyed wines globally; while living in San Francisco, she drank her way through the Northern California wine country and has been trained on glassware by Georg J. Riedel. She has met many talented wine makers from around the world and has sat on wine tasting panels including one to help a Dallas based catering company select vintages for their wine list. Due to her love of wine and the countless dinner parties she hosts under her grapevines; her friends affectionately call her the “Grape Goddess.” If you were to ask her husband, he would say that her blood type is Cabernet.

After years of attending wine tastings and lectures, she found that some of the information was helpful, but not memorable and certainly not funny. Many tastings were snooty, boring or super technical; which sparked her desire to create something that would not only be entertaining and non-intimidating, but humorous. Séverine feels that wine tasting should be a memorable event, an experience that allows people to discover and enjoy different wine producing countries one bottle at a time. As Séverine likes to say, “Wine is a pleasure for all your senses.” “Drink wine, live fine, Salud!”

For further information on Séverine Stephenson and Salud! A Wine Experience™, please call 214-392-7384 or email sevalis@gmail.com.