Bob of Chicago

Below is a a bio I have seen floating around the web for Robert Bansberg. I have only met him but a few times, yet even in those modest encounters I sensed a genuine warmth and depth of character.
(copied from http://www.tastings.com/bti/our_team.html)

Robert (Bob) Bansberg is an award winning sommelier and wine educator, formerly at Chicago’s four star restaurant Ambria for its full twenty-five year run, and currently a faculty member at the School of Culinary Arts at Kendall College in Chicago. Since 1992, Bansberg has taught a Wine and Beverage Management Class at Kendall College’s School of the Culinary Arts and for five years has hosted the The Wine Series, a wine appreciation and food-pairing course for the community. Since 2000, he has lectured at the Alliance Français and The Calphalon Culinary also based in Chicago. He is an active board member of the “Toast to Humanity” charity and has donated his time to the National Charity “Share our Strength”.

In 2004, Bansberg was one of five nominated for “Best Sommelier” in the Jean Banchet Awards for Culinary Excellence. In their July 2000 issue, Food & Wine magazine Bansberg selected in a national poll of their readership as “The Best Sommelier in Chicago”, Chicago Magazine also listed Bansberg as the cities best in their August 2000 issue. In 1999, Bansberg was nominated for the highly coveted James Beard Award. He has won regional French sommelier competitions. He is a senior wine judge at the Beverage Testing Institute and has judged for the National Restaurant Association’s Wine Classic, and has served on numerous panels for the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times.

He has written for Wine & Spirits and The Wine Enthusiast, and has lectured at the Midwest International Wine Exposition as well as Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. He has been writing wine tasting notes for Santé Magazine in 2004. Bansberg is a graduate of Northwestern University and studied in the Neurophysiology Graduate Program at the University of Illinois Medical Center. He resides in Evanston with his wife and their two children. He continues to be a leader and educator in his community. A gifted and gracious man in many respects, he is truly the “Sommelier’s Sommelier.”

This entry was posted on November 2, 2007 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Bob Bansberg, Chicago, Destination Sommelier, Sommelier. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.