Italian Wine Podcast Ep. 1119 Miguel De Leon | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin
Welcome to Episode 1119 Cynthia Chaplin interviews Miguel de Leon, in this installment of Voices, on the Italian Wine Podcast.
More about today’s guest:
He was born in Manila, grew up around tons of food and even more family, and was educated in one of the top schools in the country. He moved to the United States at ten years old, to Orange County, California, completing an American public education, he soon went to college at UC Berkeley, where he studied Linguistics and City Planning + Urban Studies.
More importantly, he landed a reservationist position at a small neighborhood restaurant called Chez Panisse that would upend everything he knew about food politics and the restaurant industry.
He moved to New York to pursue a restaurant career, landing stints in some of New York’s toughest dining rooms, most notably at David Chang’s radical East Village restaurant Momofuku, and at Andy Nusser’s ode to Catalunya and tapas at Gramercy’s Casa Mono. Along the way, he completed certifications with Cornell University, the Sake Education Council, and the Wine and Spirits Education Trust.
In 2020, his writing about social justice, equity, and systemic inequalities in the wine space galvanized a personal and critical look at complicit wine systems and the complexities of intersectionality through the lens of wine in acclaimed publications like PUNCH (Penguin/Random House), Bon Appétit, and Wine + Spirits Magazine. He and his work have been featured in The New York Times, Food + Wine Magazine, Grubstreet (New York Magazine), Eater, Barron’s PENTA, and Bloomberg, among others.
Currently, Miguel serves as the wine director for SoHo’s Pinch Chinese. He also sits at the resource council for the Hue Society, an organization that promotes and prioritizes BIPOC professionals in the wine industry, creating curriculum that focuses on decolonizing and recentering wine spaces and language. He edits and contributes to Disgorgeous, a podcast and zine about wine. He advises the UC Davis Viticulture and Enology Program for its seminar work in the field of Critical Wine Studies.
In 2022, Miguel earned the prestigious James Beard Foundation Media Award for Personal Essay - Long Form for his work about intersecting identities and decolonization, and was named in the inaugural class of Wine Enthusiast’s Future 40, tastemakers and innovators shaping the way we drink now.
To learn more visit:
Instagram: migueld1
About today’s Host:
Cynthia Chaplin is a VIA certified Italian Wine Ambassador, a professional sommelier with FIS and the WSA, a member of Le Donne del Vino, and a Professor of Italian wine and culture. Born in the USA, she’s lived in Europe since 1990. Italian wine, in particular rosé, is her passion. She works with embassies, corporations and private clients, creating and presenting tastings, events, seminars and in-depth courses. Cynthia is a wine writer, a judge at international wine and sake competitions, she consults with restaurants and enotecas developing comprehensive wine lists and food pairings, and she advises clients who want to curate an Italian wine collection. She currently works for Vinitaly International in Verona as a Project Manager, Educator, and the host of VOICES Series on The Italian Wine Podcast, focusing on diversity and inclusion in the global wine industry.
To learn more visit:
Facebook: Italian Wines in English
Instagram: kiss_my_glassx
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/cynthia-chaplin-190647179/
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Until next time, Cin Cin!