Meet Todd Wernstrom
Todd Wernstrom has written about and sold wine—not to mention consumed it!—for more than two decades. He began transitioning away from a successful personal injury law practice in the late 1990s in order to do what Robert Parker popularized for lawyers: write about wine.
Todd has been published in numerous local, regional and national publications, most notably as the executive editor of Wine News, a national bimonthly based in South Florida that ceased publication in 2010. He is also a certified sommelier.
After moving with his family to New York City in 2007, he transitioned to the sell side, establishing his own wine import/distribution company, Ice Bucket Selections, where he worked with small, family-owned winegrowers from California, Oregon, Washington, the Hudson Valley, Champagne, the Loire Valley, Chablis and the Côte de Beaune.
These winemakers’ pure expressions of their terroirs were sold to Michelin-starred restaurants and boutique wine stores, primarily in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Todd merged his company with a much larger importer/distributor and after several years, went to work for small importer/distributor as its sales director.
Since COVID, Todd has focused mostly on writing projects, primarily in the wine space. He co-authored a cookbook that was recently published. “A Cook’s Table” has a substantial wine component that delves deeply—albeit not pedantically!—into wine/food pairings, with an emphasis on some simple strategies to make pairing fun rather than daunting.