Michael Donohue was born into a family of non-wine drinkers in Canada. He was bitten by the wine bug in university, first by Cotes-du-Rhone reds, and began to examine how one could taste so much better than or different from its neighbor down the road. Following his graduation with an MA in Philosophy he began to take wine courses, including those of the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, and wound up teaching WSET courses for most of the past 30 years. He finds wine endlessly fascinating as its history and notoriety touches on a wealth of other subjects including physiology, chemistry, history, geography, religion, economics and even sex.While a passionate wine consumer and educator, Michael made his living in the high-tech arena until he finally listened to those career consultants who say you should do what you love and the money will follow. This has proven to be a falsehood – wine is a labor of love- and the entire ‘hospitality sector’ is grossly undervalued. Michael has sold wine on a retail and wholesale basis and built a wine importing company with a network of 50 suppliers from around the world before forsaking a government monopoly for free enterprise. He continues to work in retail, leads wine tours in Sonoma and teaches wine classes in San Francisco. Michael not only knows wines and France but he speaks french beautifully. A veteran of over 25 countries Michael shares his infectious enthusiasm for good taste and beauty to make the your travel experience truly unique and always unforgetable!
