TFL columnist and Los Angeles native Ellen never expected to live in a part of the country where everyone owns a snow shovel—but it was here, while earning a graduate degree in Gastronomy at B.U., that she fell for wine.
Ellen remembers the exact moment: During a birthday dinner at Oleana in Cambridge, she tasted Chateau Musar from Lebanon for the first time, and was filled with questions. “How can a wine be so wild and gamy? Are those rose petals I’m smelling? How did French grapes end up in the Bekaa Valley?” she remembers thinking. “I felt thrilled and bewildered; I decided then that I no longer wanted wine to be a mystery.” That newfound curiosity eventually led her to a gig as a wine columnist for The Boston Globe; today her work regularly appears in the Sunday Arts, Thursday Scene, and Food & Dining sections. She also chats with restaurant wine directors for TFL’s monthly “Tableside with a Somm” column.
Besides wine, Ellen draws inspiration from modern dance and the occasional ballet class. “Dance is the best antidote to staring at a blank screen,” she says.
