Kelly Coughlin

My name is Kelly Coughlin. I was born and raised outside of the Great City of Chicago, the heart of this country. This was the city that shaped me, reprimanded and praised me. It will always be my home, but it is time for me to explore and wander, to discover more of who I am and what I am capable of. This past June, Mark (my boyfriend) and I packed up a small Uhaul, discarding our clutter, and drove across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains to San Francisco. If there was ever a religious experience, that drive was it. Earth is a moody woman who changes constantly, bright and sunny boasting neon colors one hour, to dark and low clouds covering her colors in grey tones the next.

We both work in the restaurant industry, on different sides of the pass, and were seeking the source of our passions - for Mark it was the product and the proximity to the farmers, for me, the wine. My exploration into wine stemmed from my college studies of philosophy. The two go hand in hand, where much of the wine making culture pulls from philosophical beliefs, and most of philosophy's great minds were found swimming in barrels of wine - think The Symposium of Plato. I love wine not only for the vast, wafting aromas, the varying mouth feels or the imbibing states, but also for the community it creates, the conversation it blossoms. I began drinking wine at 17, yes, a touch young for the states, but at the time I was living in Lyon, France with a family of eight where the consumption of wine was tolerated even at the ripe age of 6 years old. There was something warm and inviting about that culture. Nobody was looking to get wacked out, and a glass or two never put anyone under the table. Lyon sits at the base of Burgundy, closest to Beaujolais. This is where my love affair began, sipping the quaffing bubblegum juice of the area (of course I didn't discover the great Cru Beaujolais until later in my life). I remember Sunday suppers at friends houses deep in the vineyards, bottles of Beaujolais scattered about the backyard, andouillette of tripe (a new treat for me) and Cervelle de Canut on long wooden tables, and the sobremesa would last hours into the purple night. These are the strongest memories I have, and ones that have driven me to where I am today, trying to recreate those feelings for others.

Being here in San Francisco is the closest I have come to my own recreation of those times spent in Lyon. The creative energy that pulses through this cit