Happy Being Clean is a lifestyle platform that focuses on clean ingredients and lifestyle choices so you are drinking the best wine, eating well and taking care of your body & home.

About Tina

Sommelier at TK Sommelier

My life truly has always revolved around food, wine and experiencing the world.  Some of my first memories include talking and sipping wine (don't worry I didn't live in the US at the time) with my grandfather- who had very strong opinions about French wine (if it wasn't a Pomerol or St. Emilion, then it was inferior).  My passion for food and wine has grown since and I have never stopped learning, traveling, studying, and sharing my knowledge since. I read, think, talk, research, dream all things wine-all the time. As a professional Sommelier, I get to work with my passion all the time- I have the best job in the world. And, I am continuing my education all the time. While Master Sommelier is not something I will strive for, I am working towards my Masters of Wine- which is a huge, but wonderful undertaking.

With this, my business has evolved. While I focused many years on food and cooking with wine as an wonderful pairing- my focus now is on Wine, with food along for the ride in the sidecar.

Happy Being Clean the platform was born out of my journey 20+ years ago, to eating cleaner and limiting the chemicals in my diet and in the products I use on my body as well as to clean my home. I wanted to be sure that I what consumed (and ultimately my family consumed) was healthy and made of the best and most natural ingredients. This lead me to doing a better job reading labels.

What a revelation! I realized that the products that I was eating contained ingredients that were so far from their natural state, that they weren’t even food anymore.  Some processed “foods” didn’t contain a single real food ingredient.  And all the produce that I was eating had been treated with harsh chemicals including pesticides and fertilizers.  I didn’t want to be a science experiment anymore.  And that led me to seek out better ingredients and shopping at better supermarkets.

I worried, as many people do, that shopping at Whole Foods or natural stores and farmer’s markets would be more expensive- and for somethings it is- but when you add everything up and stop spending so much money on pre-made or processed foods, it evens out.  And best of all, my body started feeling so much better!  I felt lighter & leaner, had more energy, my skin cleared, and I was surprisingly less hungry.  I was sold.  In the long run a healthy lifestyle costs a whole lot less than an unhealthy one…

I have continued on this journey, for myself and for my family, and have since done so much research (the over-achiever in me shines through) and gained so much knowledge, that I became a licensed nutritionist and nutritional consultant; though I don’t pursue it as a a career, the knowledge informs my decisions and has helped create a good relationship to food for myself and for my family and friends, who have incessantly told me that I should blog about my experiences.  So here we are- that’s how Happy Being Clean was born.

We eat as organically as possible, try to use mostly natural ingredients, focus on non-GMO, eat fresh every day, and grow a garden.  In addition to food and beverages, we try to avoid harsh chemicals in all aspects of our lives, including beauty products and cleaning products.  The stuff we put on our bodies is just as important as what we put in our bodies, and we want to protect the earth around us, so we can experience as much of it as possible.

As my interests evolved and passion for all things wine continued to developed, I realized that the more I studied, learned, tested on and competed in wine the more I wanted to learn. So, I became a certified Somm and have since focused all of my energies on the wine business in restaurants, retail, and independently. Still, my core focus remains on good, well made wines that are better, while being better for you and respectful of the environment. Wines that come from vineyards, not factories; wines produced and owned by estates rather than marketing companies. My goal, for myself and for those I provide tastings or events, is to have the best quality bottle for the best value. I do this now through creating inspiring wine lists, teaching others what and how to taste, and how to be an informed wine enthusiast. I hope to have you join me at one of my private, public or corporate tastings and travel the vineyards of the world with me. Thank you for giving me the platform to do what I love.

Cheers!