Avor

Born in 1975 in Nice, France, I grew-up most of my life in Lyon, the food and wine

capital of France. 300 miles South of Paris, Lyon is perfectly nested between two major wine regions: the Rhone Valley to the South and Beaujolais/Burgundy to the North. I have been luckily exposed to both regions but spent much more of my time in Burgundy where my family is from on both sides and where we had a family country house where we used to go on week- ends and during scholar vacations.

Also, on my family’s mother side there is a fairly large but rather split-up vineyard ownership in one of the famous Burgundy appellation, called Meursault. Therefore, I have been exposed at a very early age to awesome food and amazing wines from Burgundy and from the Rhone. Both of my grand-parents and my parents taught me the pleasures of the table, to appreciate the richness of the local French cuisine and give me that instinct to pair local food with local wines. Wine pairing is now part of what I enjoy the most even though I remain humble and cautious because pairing is one of the most difficult task and knowhow for wine connoisseurs.

I had a pretty classic scholarship back home and graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Marketing and Sales from ESDES, a local business School based in Lyon. After finishing my mandatory military service in the French army, I was eager to travel the world and decided to look for a job in the US. In 2000, I moved to Philadelphia to work in sales for a medium size gourmet food import company. While living in Philadelphia I met my future wife, Tanya and after several back and forth between the US and France we finally decided after 9/11 to get married and we moved together in New York City.

After a short experience in sales for a seafood distributor based in New York City, I got hired in 2004 to represent Paramount Brands, a fairly large wine and spirits distributor covering NY and NJ. In 2007, the company went out of business and I got hired based on my skills and experience by one of the finest wine distributor at the time, Lauber Imports, which just got recently purchased by the largest wine and spirits distributor in the country, Southern Wine and Spirits. The final merging between the Lauber families owned operating business and the corporate giant Southern happened at the end of 2008 and this is when I realized that I was not made to work for big corporations.

I decided in April 2010, in the middle of the recession to quit and join the decedents and veterans of Lauber Imports who just formed a new fresh and dynamic start-up called Verity Wine Partners. The aim of this company was to offer an amazing selection of wines as well as paramount customer service and transparent way of doing business. I have been now happily working for almost three years for Verity and I can say I largely contribute to the success ofthis company; I am currently part of their best salespersons and really enjoy working for an amazing team of people.