Why AERILYN Exists
You never know when a great glass of wine will change everything.
It was 1992. I was fresh out of Georgetown, working as an analyst at Morgan Stanley. Client dinners were part of the job, and at one of them someone ordered a bottle of Perrier-Jouët La Belle Époque. I had been drinking wine coolers in college. This was something else entirely. The table moved on to still wine. I was not ready to let go of that glass.
Within a month, I had signed up for a six-week wine appreciation course in New York City. I did not know what I was chasing. I just knew I needed to understand what I had tasted.
The curiosity snowballed. I spent weekends in cooking classes. On every vacation and work trip, I found a kitchen and learned something new. Three years in China. Time in Latin America. Across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Wherever I went, I cooked, ate, and tasted. Sparkling wine stayed at the center of it. I sought it out constantly, especially when someone else was paying.
After three years living in Shanghai, I returned home and enrolled full-time at the French Culinary Institute. I stepped away from corporate life to invest in something I loved. I graduated at the top of my class in 2011. My final project was a five-course progressive dinner paired entirely with sparkling wine.
In 2015, something shifted. I fell in love with grower Champagne. Small producers making wines with a clear sense of place. Around that time, I learned about the négociant model. You could build a serious sparkling wine program without owning a vineyard. I filed that away and kept asking questions.
By 2023, I had completed WSET Level 2 with Distinction and made my first trip to Champagne. That summer I enrolled in the Wine Scholar Guild Champagne Master program. The following year I returned to Reims for six days of study with Essi Avellan and Peter Liem, including visits to Bollinger, Lanson, Pierre Péters, and Bérêche et Fils. I passed with Honors in 2025 and am now studying for WSET Level 3.
For thirty years, I built this expertise in the margins of a demanding corporate career, helping to realize other people’s visions. In 2023, I left corporate life for good.
AERILYN is what I built in the margins. Now it has my full attention.
Ever curious,
Tammee