Guy Fieri talks to Wine Spectator about wine and family

In addition to being the Mayor of Flavortown, Guy Fieri is also a wine guy, he told Wine Spectator in a series of recent video interviews.

The celebrity chef and longtime Sonoma County resident recently spoke to the wine and lifestyle magazine in a three-part “Wine Spectator Spotlight” video series covering Fieri’s personal history with wine and his family wine brand.

According to Wine Spectator, the wine talk blossomed out of a conversation between Fieri and Cigar Aficionado executive editor David Savona, beginning with Fieri’s recollection of his first experience with wine in France as an exchange student at age 16.

In the first video of the series, Fieri tells Savona that he drank wine with dinner while living with his host family in France, and learned how it enhanced the flavors of the food. He also learned “the vast spectrum” of good and bad wine when he came back to the states.

In the second video, Fieri continues his walk down wine memory lane with a story about buying a seven-acre lot of Pinot vineyards with plans to start a small winery that was initially foiled by “some NIMBYs” in the Sonoma County wine industry.

While that winery didn’t happen, Fieri tells Savona about meeting award-winning winemaker Guy Davis of Santa Rosa’s Davis Family Vineyards and keeping his own name off of the Pinot Noir the two made together.

“I wanted the wine to sell on its own merit,” Fieri said in the video.

That wine brand became Hunt & Ryde Winery, named for Fieri’s sons Hunter and Ryder, and in the third video, Fieri talks about letting Hunter “take the wine (brand) and run with it.”

“He grew the brand by 1100% this last year,” Fieri said of Hunter in the video.

“Unbelievably proud of him.”

See the video series in full at winespectator.com.