Shane Alexander
Originally from South Africa, Alexander first experienced Northern New Mexico as a skier and snowboarder (and worked as a bellman at Alpine Village Suites, where he met the woman who’d become his wife). He’d actually put off culinary school (at Warwick’s Chef School in Hermanus Cape Town) for Taos and its mountains. He did go, though, and finished, and upon graduating went back to the States, first finding work at Sedona, Arizona’s The Enchantment Resort and then at The Tides in Irvington, Virginia.
In 2009 he returned to Taos as a line cook at Ky Quintanilla’s Lambert’s of Taos. Soon after landing he took over as chef at the Snakedance Condominiums’ restaurant. He spent a couple years there, then two more years in Austin, at the Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa, before returning, once again, to New Mexico, first as the sous chef at The Club at Las Campanas, and then he was hired away by Santa Fe’s legendary El Farol to serve as its head chef.
Joseph Wrede
Wrede is a Food & Wine Best New Chef, the winner of several AAA Four Diamond Awards, several DiRoNA Awards and has received both Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast distinctions. Joseph’s Culinary Pub, in Santa Fe, is the third incarnation of his original Joseph’s Table, conceived in Taos, over 20 years ago.
Tim Gaiser
From 2003 to 2011 Gaiser served as the education chair and the education director for the Court of Master Sommeliers Americas, and he currently serves as an adjunct professor for the Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley.
Experienced in all phases of the wine industry (online, wholesale, retail, winery, and restaurant—including stints at Heitz Wine Cellars in the Napa Valley and Bix and Cypress Club restaurants in San Francisco), Gaiser has developed wine education programs for restaurants, winery schools and wine distributors and taught classes on wine and spirits at every level of education. Prior to going into wine professionally, Gaiser received an M.A. in classical music from the University of Michigan, and he played classical trumpet as a freelance professional and as an extra with the San Francisco Opera.