Stephen Hawk is an award-winning artist, writer, photographer, epicure, and wine guru. He has been the Wine and Spirits editor for GOLFChicago, a regional golf magazine, since 2010, and initially based on the columns he writes there, started his wine-review blog, Winervana.com, in 2019. He is largely self-taught, learning about wines by speaking with wine makers, reading extensively and, of course, drinking as many different wines as possible!
Although he enjoys all types of wines and spirits from around the world, Winervana.com favors wines from the New World, because when as a young man he first started learning about wine, he discovered that the father of a coworker had immigrated to the U.S from France. When Stephen asked him which French wines his father preferred, he replied, “My father only drinks wines from America. Although he loved French wines when he lived there, the imported product is inferior due to damage in shipment.” For better or worse, that helped set Stephen’s preferences as well.
Stephen is married and has two stepchildren. In addition to eating and drinking well, he likes cycling (helps to burn off those calories!), reading, and listening to just about any kind of music, with a particular fondness for the blues, and a growing interest in ‘50s and ‘60s jazz.