Apparently so.

 Not from malice — from fascination. My father eventually replaced them with a single lever model that required a strength I clearly didn’t possess. My mother found a more elegant solution: she explained what a sommelier was. That it was a profession. That certain people were actually paid to choose wines, open them, and smell the corks. I asked where to sign.

I was born in Molsheim — birthplace of Bugatti, home to the Grand Cru Bruderthal, a town with more jobs than residents. A discreet place, precise, that delivers what it promises. One Sunday, my father roasted a chicken — plenty of lemon. He usually opened a Vacqueyras from Sang des Cailloux or a Mas Jullien. That day, I swapped in a Riesling. Because Riesling smelled of lemon, and lemon went with lemon. My parents both looked up. Said nothing. Tasted — and nodded. I was seven or eight. 

That was my first lesson in food and wine pairing. 

No one had taught it to me.

A Côte-Rôtie Jamet 2001. My godfather, Christian, had no children. He had a cellar. And a rare generosity — the kind that shares great bottles with a boy who doesn’t yet fully understand what he’s holding. With him, I shaped my palate. I remember one evening, Christmas I think, 2010 or 2011. He opened a Mission Haut-Brion 1989. I prefer Burgundy, but that night, I understood what ‘great wine’ meant. A colossus of devastating elegance. You feel as though you’re riding a dragon.

It was one of the last times we opened a bottle together. He died not long after, too soon. When he died, my father and I inherited his cellar. I chose to open that Côte-Rôtie Jamet 2001 to honor his memory. That wine brings tears to my eyes since then. Every time.

On the other side of my family, there was Mamé. Marguerite Kopp, from Sarreguemines. She collected local faïence and slow-cooked terrines and coq au vin, aromatic, concentrated, powerful. The foie gras you taste today at Au coeur des terroirs is her recipe. Unchanged. It’s not a dish — it’s a portrait.

Good question. 

London, 2012. Broadway House — private members club, Made in Chelsea clientele. Head Maître d’Hôtel, Head Bartender, Sommelier. A hundred hours a week for a year. It was like learning to fly without a net.

In 2013, four months in Atlanta as a cacao taster for the Cacao of Excellence initiative alongside chocolatier Kristen Hard. Cacao is a form of grape — it has terroirs, plantation vintages, fermentations that change everything. Same grammar. Same passion. When you speak the language of taste, borders disappear.

Back in Paris, I joined Alexandre Savoie as Manager at O Château and the Caves du Louvre. Eleven sommeliers. Over forty wines by the glass. Three years building both my palate and my leadership. You learn wine by serving it, not by reading about it.

In December 2016, on the recommendation of Marco Pelletier, the legendary Alain Ronzatti chose me to succeed him at Maison Michel Rostang. I became the third and final Chef Sommelier of the house across forty years of stars. 

From Michel, I learned the art of leadership. From Marie-Claude, his wife, the invisible precision of service and that unique art of hospitality ‘like at home’.

 She would often repeat: ‘Trust doesn’t exclude control’.

 It’s this legacy I perpetuated until the Maison’s sale in late 2019. 

So let’s say I haven’t found the time to find out. But then also, maybe that's just what I wanted.

For the sunshine, for the family, for all of it at once. 

In 2020, I followed my wife to Nice. 

She is a physician. Covid had been an ordeal for her — front line, endless nights. Nice was a desire for light, water, space. Our son César was born a few months later. 

He grew up with me as I built Au coeur des terroirs. By three, he knew every corner of the cellar.

In december 2021, I opened Au coeur des terroirs in the heart of the Carré d’Or — a cellar awarded the Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence.

Here I bring together two worlds: the excellence of a great cellar and the spirit of the Rostang family. With the sunshine on top.

It can be. It often is. A Monday night here might be a slice of Mamé’s foie gras on warm bread, a shaving of fresh truffle over a perfect egg, a Conterno Barolo that’s been breathing in the glass for an hour. Or perhaps an Yquem at the end, because someone at the table said ‘why not’.

There’s no formula. There’s a cellar awarded the Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence, a kitchen rooted in heart — Mamé’s, Michel Rostang’s, my greatest influences, and then my own, finally — and time. Time to sit, to taste, to talk. A Grand Cru or a glass from a small grower — what matters is the moment. My promise is simple: that you’ll remember that Monday.