Contributors

Bob Barnes

Bob Barnes

A native of Las Vegas, NV, Bob Barnes began his food and beverage writing career in 1998 as Regional Correspondent for Celebrator Beer News and wrote the Nevada Beer Nuggets column from 1998-2019.

He was Editorial Director of The Las Vegas Food & Beverage Professional from 2012-2021 and has covered Las Vegas for GAYOT.com since 2010. He continues to contribute to GAYOT, writing GAYOT’s Las Vegas Restaurant News, features on new restaurants, and beer and spirit reviews. He also writes regularly for Off The Strip, The Vegas Voice, Neon Feast, and Las Vegas Magazine.

Dan Dunn

Dan Dunn

Dan Dunn is an author, TV and radio personality, and award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in Playboy, GQ and the Los Angeles Times. His latest book is American Wino: A Tale of Reds, Whites and One Man’s Blues (HarperCollins).

Jane F. Garvey

Jane Garvey

Jane Garvey has been a freelance writer and editor for more than 20 years. Holding a doctorate in Romance Languages, she specializes in food and wine, but also has written about other topics ranging from history and art to travel and tourism. After nearly 15 years teaching Spanish language and literature, Jane worked in real estate and then spent six years as editor-in-chief of an Atlanta-based magazine devoted to homes, design and lifestyle. She’s covered wine for The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Long Island Wine Gazette, Georgia magazine and Lake Oconee Living magazine. Jane holds the Certified Specialist of Wine certification from the Society of Wine Educators. She has written restaurant reviews for GAYOT since the mid-90s and has edited the work of writers in eight Southern cities nearly as long. Her other work for GAYOT includes hotel reviews and special assignments.

Alexandra Greeley

Alexandra Greeley

Food writer/editor, cookbook author and restaurant critic Alexandra (Sandy) Greeley lives in Northern Virginia, where she cooks, eats and writes about food from every angle and from every culture. She has worked as the food editor of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and for Vegetarian Times magazine. She has written about chefs and cooking for numerous publications and has written 34 cookbooks. Sandy was the co-founder and leader of the Washington, D.C. Slow Food chapter for 11 years and is a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier’s Washington chapter.

Kayleigh Kulp

Kayleigh Kulp

Kayleigh Kulp is a freelance travel, food and business journalist who has won several awards and recognition for her work that spans spirits, food, wine and travel. In addition to GAYOT, she writes for The Daily Beast, CNBC, Afar, the Washington Post, Travel Channel, Travel + Leisure, CNN, Fox Business Network, Wine Enthusiast, The Daily Meal, Los Angeles Times, Bust, AARP and AAA Journey magazines, ABC News, Miami Herald, San Antonio Express-News, Washington Examiner and The Baltimore Sun. She’s also the author of Booze for Babes: the Smart Woman’s Guide to Drinking Spirits Right, a manual for drinking well and against gender stereotypes while highlighting phenomenal women working as distillers, entrepreneurs and mixologists.

Benjamin Narasin

Benjamin Narasin

Benjamin (Ben) Narasin is a San Francisco Bay Area resident and a freelance wine, food, travel and luxury lifestyle writer. His writing specialty is in exotic foods as well as high-end and fortified wines. His articles have appeared in Wine Enthusiast Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Winemag.com, Patterson’s The Tasting Panel and many other consumer and trade publications. He also publishes his blog foodwinelife.com.

Jenny Peters

Jenny Peters

Jenny Peters has covered entertainment, lifestyle and travel as a freelance journalist for decades. She has written about film, celebrities, events, travel, restaurants, wine and spirits, design and architecture, beauty, spas, golf, automobiles and fashion for USA Today, AARP.com, Variety and New York Magazine among others. She was the editor in chief of Brentwood/Distinctive Living magazines and held the same post for Scene magazine. Before she became a full-time freelancer, Peters was a manuscript editor at Random House Trade Publishing, working with authors ranging from Woody Allen to Carl Sagan. She is a founding and voting member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, who present the Critics’ Choice Awards every January. Find more about her at jetsetjen.com.

Amy Reiley

Amy Reiley

Amy Reiley has been instrumental in bringing the fruits of the vine to the technological age. As a creator of wine programs for handheld devices, she quickly established her place in the food and wine industry. Amy has contributed her expertise to such publications as The New York Times, Epicurean and Los Angeles Magazine. Her desire to educate and bring wine to a younger generation has led her to consult and speak out for a diverse range of wine educators from The American Institute of Wine & Food to Wine Brats. You can learn more at www.eatsomethingsexy.

Dirk Smits

Dirk Smits comes from a wine collector family. His passion for wine started at fourteen, the day his grandfather uncorked and let him taste a bottle of Château Angélus 1971. Hailing from Belgium, he started studying hotel management in Brussels after high school. During the summers, Smits had the habit of going to Bordeaux for “les vendanges” (grape harvest). His love for wine was too strong, he moved to Bordeaux and studied enology and wine tasting at Bordeaux University. His first “wine job” was at a Grand Cru Classé, Château Beychevelle (Saint-Julien). There, as well as at Château Pichon-Longueville Baron (Pauillac) where he went afterwards, Smits was exposed to all aspects of wine making and wine tasting, from picking grapes to opening a bottle and drinking. With his knowledge in hand, after touring all the wine regions of Europe, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed in the New World at Château Montelena (Napa Valley, CA). Being a sommelier at highly-rated restaurants in both Belgium and America was also part of his journey, before he spent twenty four years at Maison Marques & Domaines, an import company owned by the prestigious Champagne house Louis Roederer, managing sales in the Southwest region of the USA. Building on these years of experience very close to production and to consumers, Smits has acquired a deep and very strong knowledge of the world of wine, and also spirits. He is now bringing his tone and voice to GAYOT.com. He can taste beverages and describe them in a few languages as he is fluent in Flemish, English, French and German.