THE INTERVIEW ISSUE

DR. ERANDI DE SILVA TONNY TANNER SHANNON HARDIN MANDI "BIRDY" CASKEY DR. MELANIE CORN

GREGORY STOKES

It's January, which means it's our annual interview Issue. This year, we sat down with seven of the most interesting and influential people in Columbus

to hear their stories.

↓ Dr. Erandi De Silva

How living through the AIDS epidemic in Botswana inspired this central Ohio scientist to tackle disease while on the cutting edge of science

By Jack McLaughlin / Photos courtesy of Forge Biologics

From a massive 200,000 square-foot facility in Grove City, Dr. Erandi De Silva is helping create life-saving medical treatments so small that tens of millions would fit on the head of a pin.

No, this is not science fiction. This is central Ohio.

De Silva is the Co-Founder of Forge Biologics, a Columbus-area company that specializes in creating gene therapies through viral vectors, which provides critical treatment for a variety of congenital illnesses.

“There are over 10,000 genetically rare diseases known in the world today, and many of them are caused by a single mutation or change in a person’s DNA that causes that disease; it’s usually caused by one defect,” she said. “So what we’re doing with gene therapies is using a viral vector to deliver a working copy.”

For De Silva, the mission behind Forge is a personal one.

“I’m a scientist by training, but what motivates me to fight disease is the fact that I’ve seen epidemics first-hand,” she said. “I was born in Botswana, and lived through the HIV epidemic in Africa. Seeing doctors and scientists coming in, implementing policies and strategies to fight back really had an impact on me.”

She would later immigrate to the United States and receive a BS in Biological Sciences at Stanford, before earning a Ph.D in molecular Biology from Princeton.

Following a stint in the Bay Area, De Silva landed in Columbus, where she served as as a Director at The Drug Development Institute at the Ohio State University, where she would hone her skills to develop treatments for serious diseases.

According to De Silva, the birth of Forge in 2020 was a confluence of her being situated “In the right place, at the right time and with the right team.” Since then, less than three years ago, the company has experienced a meteoric rise, growing, she likes to say “from 3 to 300 people,” just like that. →

↓ The Vanrx Microcell Vial Filler

“YOUNGER PEOPLE ARE THE MAJORITY OF OUR PATIENT BASE, AND WE’RE FOCUSING ON THE MOST SEVERE FORMS OF THESE DISEASES THAT ARE REALLY LIFE THREATENING,”

“We’ve been building and hiring ever since we started, really,” she said.

Now, decades after the scientists and aid workers in her native Botswana impacted her so profoundly with their ability to tackle seemingly insurmountable issues, it’s she and Forge staring down so many previously-untreatable illnesses, making a serious impact on so many others.

It was for good reason, after all, she was named 2022’s Fiercest Woman in Life Sciences by Fierce Pharma.

Today, one part of Forge deals with the manufacturing of gene therapies, a complex process involving cutting-edge equipment and ultra-precise technical skill from a variety of employees. The company is also developing its own medications.

Currently, it has a medicine in clinical trials intended to combat Krabbe Disease, a rare, inherited neurodegenerative disorder that typically affects children. In fact, as Forge deals with genetic disorders, the lion’s share of their therapies are used to help younger patients.

“Younger people are the majority of our patient base, and we’re focusing on the most severe forms of these diseases that are really life threatening,” De Silva said.”We’re tackling those ones first, and then as the field matures, we might consider branching out.’

And for all of her passion toward medicine, De Silva is also a fierce champion of central Ohio, and the area’s huge potential. Not only has she and others within Forge regularly commended the company’s home base of Grove City, Ohio, De Silva believes the area can become a true hotbed for medical biotech.

“Central Ohio has a lot of access to talent, we knew there a lot of folks experienced in Gene therapies here. It’s also a place where money can go a little bit further; It’s cheaper to rent space, also in terms of being really attractive to the people potentially moving here from expensive cities like Boston or San Francisco.”

Other gene therapy companies are also staking their claim in the Columbus area, with the Massachusetts-based company Sarepta Therapeutics opening a gene therapies center here in late 2021, and Andelyn Biosciences, an affiliate company of Nationwide Children’s Hospital that’s turned out an array of novel gene therapies.

And according to Dr. Erandi De Silva, this growth isn’t likely to slow down anytime soon for the area.

But then again, neither is she. ♦

To learn more, visit forgebiologics.com

TANNER

The unlikely origin story of the artisan meat shop, The Butcher & Grocer, and its owner, Tony Tanner

By Jack McLaughlin / Photos by Sarah Pfeifer

In 2014, Tony Tanner sat holed up in a turkeyhunting blind with best friend, Rob “Earl” Young, a man who would be dead before the end of that year. And they both knew it.

Young was suffering from late-stage lung cancer, and the duo spent a significant portion of their trip just talking. According to Tanner, it wasn’t any sort of grand realization or cosmic questioning that stuck with him from their conversation, it was what his friend had to say about food.

“He was an IBM guy and was always doing research, and he started telling me about how so much of the food we eat is processed, and the consequences that has on our health,” Tanner said. “It’s not that he was saying processed food causes cancer outright, but he believed it at the very least didn’t help at all.”

Years later, this conversation would be on Tanner’s mind when he launched The Butcher & Grocer, the hugely-impactful artisan butcher shop and marketplace, and became one of the driving forces in a farm-to-table renaissance for Columbus.

Immediately after his conversation with Earl Young, however, Tanner was worlds away from running a butcher shop. He was serving as the Chief of Staff for Dave Yost during his stint as State Auditor. Tanner was a busy man, so at the time, he hadn't given much more thought to what his friend had told him about food.

“I slowly started looking into it myself, though, and I pretty quickly learned that this is kind of disturbing. The fact that we’re injecting animals with hormones and with a regular antibiotic regimen, how we’re spraying Roundup on crop fields,” he said. “We learned at about five years old that we are what we eat, but for some reason that never extended to what the food we eat eats.” → THE 2023 INTERVIEW ISSUE IS PRESENTED BY THE OHIOHEALTH CAPITAL CITY HALF MARATHON

“SO ONE DAY, AFTER TRYING AND NOT BEING ABLE TO BUY ANYTHING, I HAD THE CRAZY IDEA OF OPENING MY OWN BUTCHER SHOP,” Dr. Erandi De Silva →

And while Tanner admits he “isn’t the pillar of health,” he says eating more naturally-sourced foods that aren’t loaded with additives or hormones continues to benefit him to this day.

When he first began eating more consciously, Tanner would have an enormously difficult time finding Ohio beef, and he learned quickly that he couldn’t trust some of the larger sources who said they were providing it. Sure, farmers markets had it, but sometimes vendors sold out quickly, or sometimes the farms he would buy from wouldn’t show up to the market on a given day.

“So one day, after trying and not being able to buy anything, I had the crazy idea of opening my own butcher shop,” he said with a laugh. “So in 2016, I put a business plan together, went down to Huntington [Bank], and put everything I owned into opening the store.”

And people loved it.

The first iteration of The Butcher & Grocer opened in Grandview in 2016, and it still stands today as a hub for conscious consumers and many more. Last spring, the Butcher & Grocer opened multiple food stalls inside The East Market, offering everything from prime beef cuts and fresh Ohio milk to madeto-order food, and Tanner even opened a wholesale arm of the company, called TB&G Meats that has operated on the east side for several years already.

According to Tanner, the concept’s most profitable year was 2020, followed by 2021 (he believes pandemic protein shortages played into this). And while 2022 has fallen to be on par with 2019, and he’s had to pause for now a pair of new locations, the concept is still alive and well.

Part of the reason is due to Tanner’s insistence on Ohio sourcing. Tanner, a life-long Central Ohian–who claims that since he was five years old he has only lived on streets that have a direct intersection with East Broad—has only on one occasion ever considered straying from this model and sourcing processed beef, before wholeheartedly rejecting it.

“I remember it was our first Christmas and we were about to sell out of rump roast. For a minute, I entertained the thought of buying some regular Ohio factory beef. I slept on it, and then I came to my senses, and realized there’s not enough money in the world to make me go back on something we really believe in,” Tanner said.

And that, if you ask us, is why Columbus is eating it up. ♦

To learn more, visit thebutcherandgrocer.com

SHANNON HARDIN

The child of a former City Hall staffer, Shannon Hardin has Columbus in his blood, and he’s preparing to face down one of the most dynamic and unprecedented periods in its history

By Jack McLaughlin / Photos by Sarah Pfeifer

On a cold afternoon overlooking the Scioto River from his City Hall conference room, Columbus Council President Shannon Hardin recounts the story of why he entered the world of city government.

It’s a story that goes back, if you’d believe it, to before he was even born.

“For thirty years, my mom was a front desk clerk of the Columbus City Council, and that’s one of the reasons I’m here today, ” said Hardin, who was appointed to the Council in 2014 and took over as President in 2018. “I remember when I first joined, a story ran in the newspaper with a headline like ‘Son of City Hall Executive Appointed to Council,’ and that’s always stuck with me.”

With a grin, Hardin says his mother’s position has also afforded him a unique distinction among City Council representatives.

“I’m pretty sure I’m the only Council member ever to have been breast-fed in City Hall.”

Hardin, who hails from the Columbus neighborhood of Southfield, now has a son of his own, but he’s also, in more ways than one, a son of Columbus. And as the first Black gay man to serve as City Council President, he’s leading all of us into an exhilarating and unprecedented new era.

Motivations aside, the first time Hardin actually got his first taste of city government was when he was 15, and a student at Columbus Alternative High School. At the time, his school had an internship program, and Hardin pursued this through the City of Columbus.

A predecessor to the City’s 311 call center, he began working in what was known then as the Mayor’s Action Center, fielding calls about missed trash pickups and assorted day-to-day issues. This might sound mundane to some, but for Hardin, it served as an enticing gateway into civil service.

“There were a lot of people who weren’t expecting to get their issues solved, they were just hoping to log their problems, to make the city aware of them,” Hardin said. “But a lot of the time, we got their problems solved. What was intoxicating to me, and what still is, is the ability to hear someone’s issue, and then be able to connect them to someone–usually not me–that can then solve things for them.”→

↑ Hardin in his City Hall conference room

“WE’RE GOING TO ADD 500,000 TO ONE MILLION PEOPLE TO THIS COMMUNITY IN THE NEXT 10 TO 15 YEARS, AND THAT MEANS WHAT WE DO RIGHT NOW WILL IMPACT ALL OF THEM IN THE FUTURE. WE WANT TO BE BOLD WITH THOSE CHOICES; WE HAVE TO BE.”

Hardin later came aboard a 2008 income tax campaign with Mayor Michael Coleman, and while this taught him many of the finer points of government work, he credits his political career just as much to the late Mary Funk, a longtime Community Liaison who was recently inducted into the Columbus Hall of Fame.

“A lot of people know Mayor Coleman was a mentor of mine, but Mary Funk was like a second mother to me,” he said. “She was this little older white woman from southeastern Ohio who never wanted her name out there, but she taught me about serving selflessly. Sometimes, people would call with problems in the middle of the night, and since city employees would be sleeping, she would run out to the store for them, or see if she could help by herself.”

Just like Funk or the former call center employees he worked alongside, Hardin understands how important that closeness–actually working with and talking to Columbus citizens–is for him.

Not only does he make time to talk with people at business ribbon-cuttings and restaurant openings, he opens himself to friendly encounters nearly anywhere he goes.

“People will come up to me all the time at the gas station or the grocery store to tell me how I’m doing. Who needs a poll when you have the Kroger caucasus,” he said with a laugh.

And while Hardon values this closeness, he recognizes that Columbus has its own big-picture issues that need to be faced as well.

He notes that the city is the largest in the country without an advanced transit system, and the importance of preparing Columbus residents to compete for the wave of new jobs on the way (he was instrumental in introducing the program that affords free Columbus State tuition to Columbus City School students). Hardin will also pound the table for Columbus needing more, and more affordable, housing options.

Ultimately, the Columbus City Council President acknowledged that most of these issues point toward a single larger one: growth, and how we handle it. Because Columbus is poised for a season of enormous growth, and the son of a former City Hall staffer understands that. He understands what his decisions mean for himself, for his own son, and for each of us.

“The city we live in is beautiful today. But that doesn't have as much to do with the last 7 or 8 years I’ve been on council; it’s because leaders 25 years ago were strategic and prepared us for this,” Hardin said. “We’re going to add 500,000 to one million people to this community in the next 10 to 15 years, and that means what we do right now will impact all of them in the future. We want to be bold with those choices; We have to be.” ♦

To learn more, visit www.shannonhardin.com

↑ Mandi “Birdy” Caskey

From massive public projects to flaming murals, local artist Miss Birdy’s work is heating up the art world in Columbus

and beyond

By Jim Fischer / Photos by Sarah Pfeifer

Sitting in her studio at The Fort, the renovated-and-still-being-renovated former warehouse space on Columbus’ South Side, Columbus muralist Mandi “Birdy” Caskey is perched (pun intended) on a tall office chair, legs crossed, omnipresent nose ring in place, long, dirty blonde hair tousled but only slightly, and half the things she is saying make her giggle, snicker or outright laugh.

So you know she’s up to something. →

↑ Birdy's artistic process ↓

“CONTEMPORARY MURALISM ISN’T GOING AWAY. ARTISTS – EVERYWHERE BUT I’M TALKING HERE IN COLUMBUS – ARE READY TO CREATE. NO ONE WANTS TO BE ALONE ON THIS JOURNEY”

Especially because the other half of the things she’s saying, she’s not laughing at all.

In the past six years, Caskey has painted murals across the country and around the world, often the result of formal invitation due to her burgeoning reputation as a muralist who makes beautiful and thoughtful images on a grand scale. In addition to outdoor walls in the American South, Southwest, Midwest and beyond, she’s painted in Spain, Australia and Israel, just to name a few.

Asked about her thoughts on this, Caskey defaults to talking about a ritual she practices.

“I do this thing where I’m on the boom (she’s painting massive walls on the sides of buildings, remember), and I extend it as far up and out as it will go, just to see how far I can see, and I sit there and dangle my feet over the side,” she said. “And I’m there in [Lleida] Spain and I just start crying.”

This is one of those times she’s not laughing.

“Of course, I didn’t know I was even capable of any of this until I just did it,” she added.

Caskey left Lima to attend art school in Columbus because she figured small-town Ohio was no place to learn how to become an artist.

She found community among a cadre of street artists, which, yeah, that’s people making graffiti, most often on unapproved surfaces and spaces. But that proved the beginning, she explained, of the “until I just did it” thing she had mentioned earlier.

That experience and resulting confidence earned her increasingly larger and higher-profile gigs, including painting a mural on the top floor of the Rhodes State Office Tower. How much more “inside” could you get for a painter who still occasionally found herself running from cops late at night?

Locally, Caskey subsequently garnered attention for her giant mural at Franklinton high-rise condominium development Gravity and, in 2020, for her “We Are Stronger Together” mural, a 400foot work on an abandoned highway overpass near Scioto Audubon Metro Park near downtown.

“I was depressed. We were all so isolated. I was asking how I could reach out to people when I can’t be with them,” Caskey said. “And it started out about COVID, but it ended up being about the protests (that followed the death of George Floyrd while in police custody), of making a statement of support for all of those out there on the street who were trying to be heard.”

Caskey recognized that she was fortunate to have found first a community and then a path to be able to make those kinds of statements. Her intent – and one of the things she’s up to – is to create a space in which every local artist gets a chance to do the same.

“Contemporary muralism isn’t going away. Artists – everywhere but I’m talking here in Columbus – are ready to create. No one wants to be alone on this journey,” Caskey said. “We need to identify and strengthen that community.” →

Caskey recently turned 30. That, combined with a recent break-up, convinced the artist she needed to take some time to clear her head. Figuring a projectless, deadline-less month on the road would help, she spent most of November visiting old friends and making new ones in a meandering drive out west.

“I was giving myself some space,” she noted, adding, in a tone that suggests mixed blessings, “This (muraling) has become everything I am.”

Following a brief back-and-forth with her interviewer about whether 30 is still “young,” Caskey hints that, perhaps it’s less about age than something which she’s always known about her chosen path.

In August, she created a combination mural project/performance piece in which she painted murals on the sides of two condemned homes in Whitehall, then set one on fire (yes, the fire department knew this was happening and was actually using the houses as a controlled burn for practice). The murals, close-ups of a woman’s face, were a way for the artist to grapple with the Supreme Court’s undoing of Roe v. Wade and what that said about agency over women’s bodies.

“This piece was very much about cause and effect, about how what you do impacts the future,” Caskey said.

But it also addressed something fundamental Caskey has always known about muraling and street art – that it’s ephemeral.

“You know this about street art, that it’s going to deteriorate and die,” Caskey said. “There was something about exercising control over that process, about burning a place down and telling a thing the old line, ‘I brought you into this world and I can take you out.’”

While you’ll still see Caskey painting murals both in the city and around the world, she’s got other ideas you might have to pay a little more attention to notice. An awards show by artists for artists, an insider magazine highlighting the city’s independent artists (inspired by a publication in Denver called “Birdy,” if you can believe it) and a bail fund for graffiti artists are just a few of the things knocking around inside Caskey’s head.

“A city that paints itself loves itself, she said. “If you don’t have a thriving underground culture, you’re strangling a part of your people.”

And if her snickering and laughing is any indication, Caskey intends to remain part of that underground culture, even as her own career has taken shape.

“I could stand to spend some time being chased by cops again,” she said, with a look in her eye that suggests she’s not joking despite the laughter. “If I had never worked illegally, I would have no idea what I’m capable of.” ♦

Birdy's artistic process ↓

DR. MELANIE

CORN

Dr. Melanie Corn ↑

Swapping art history for academic administration, Dr. Melanie Corn is making it her mission to make CCAD a national name

By Molly Hammond / Photos by Sarah Pfeifer

If you haven’t heard the name Melanie Corn yet, it’s time to get a pen and paper to jot it down. This won’t be the first time you hear it.

A Chicagoland native who dropped a career path in art history for academic administration at Columbus College of Art and Design, Corn is now where she believes she belongs, and it’s hard to fault her: Under her tutelage, the fifth president of the college has helped catapult the name and image of CCAD from regional arts hub to national name.

Just make sure you don’t ever call it a hidden gem.

“My goal is to never hear again what a hidden gem CCAD is,” Corn said. “I don’t want us to be the hidden gem. I want us to be the treasure in the center of Columbus.”

When Columbus College of Art and Design started in 1879, it did so as an add-on of the Columbus Art Museum. The school allowed community members to come in and take different art classes on the weekends. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that CCAD started teaching traditional college courses. The school separated from the Columbus Art Museum in the 80’s and along with the separation, became a degree-granting, accredited university.

Dr. Corn, for her part, became president of the college in 2016 after moving from administration at an art school in California. And while she was on track to become a professor, it was a different type of involvement in education that brought her to the arch city. → THE 2023 INTERVIEW ISSUE IS PRESENTED BY THE OHIOHEALTH CAPITAL CITY HALF MARATHON

“ WHAT A LOT OF PEOPLE DON’T REALIZE IS THAT A LOT OF BIG BUSINESSES HERE IN THE CITY, BANKS, STORES, PLACES LIKE THAT, EMPLOY A LOT OF CCAD ALUMNI, AND THEY’RE DRIVING THE CREATIVE ENGINES THAT ARE DRIVING THESE COMPANIES,”

“I grew up with a dad who was a college biology professor and my mom was a highschool guidance counselor. Education was always a part of me. I felt like home when I was in a place where myself, along with my peers, had a chance to learn and grow,” she said. “I’m always inspired by being around a perpetually revolving door of talented, young people. Having the chance to see the impact that my students have made on the community is the most rewarding aspect.”

For Corn, the beauty of arts education has to do with the hands-on nature of it, with the fact that every day she’s meeting students, seeing their growth, and witnessing their artwork develop before her eyes.

Where Corn begins to separate herself from previous generations in her fields, though, is through her desire to make art more than simply a niche specialty. In a world where marketing is king and the visual aspects rules, artists are in a unique position to take back vocational power. Dr. Corn realizes this, and she’s full speed ahead to this end.

“What a lot of people don’t realize is that a lot of big businesses here in the city, banks, stores, places like that, employ a lot of CCAD alumni, and they’re driving the creative engines that are driving these companies,” Dr. Corn said. “In our economy here in the United States, creative content and design, that's the differentiaor. When you walk into a grocery store and pick up a box of cereal, what really sets them apart to most people is the way they look.” ♦

To learn more, visit ccad.edu THE 2023 INTERVIEW ISSUE IS PRESENTED BY THE OHIOHEALTH CAPITAL CITY HALF MARATHON

The world-renowned Argentenian chef–and the face of one of the city’s hottest new restaurants–talks food, family and doubling down on his passions

By Jack McLaughlin / Photos by Sarah Pfeifer

Before Sebastian La Rocca and I sat down to discuss his life, career, and one the most exciting Columbus eateries, FYR, that he’s the face of, he tells me a quick story with the same mixture of vivacity and nonchalance that makes him the most magnetic personality in a room that's already mostly full of people.

“I just sold my restaurants in Puerto Rico,” he said without a shrug.

This, he explained, was the group of renowned eateries (one of which was named one of San Pellegrino’s “50 World’s 50 Best Discoveries”) that he invested years of his life into, and moved with his family to be near.

But for La Rocca, what matters is in front of him, and right now that’s the American Midwest and a hotly-anticipated new fine dining concept already raking in rave reviews: FYR, the flameinspired eatery located in the new Hilton Columbus Downtown Tower.

“I’m not going to be in two places at once,” he said. “I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to.”

For central Ohio’s hottest (get it?) new chef, this tendency to double down on what really matters to him–even if it means winnowing out a part of life that feels deeply ingrained–is nothing new. → THE 2023 INTERVIEW ISSUE IS PRESENTED BY THE OHIOHEALTH CAPITAL CITY HALF MARATHON

“MY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN COOKING OVER OPEN FIRE SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME. IT’S IN MY BLOOD. IT’S IN MY DNA,”

Before La Rocca truly dedicated himself to cooking–believe it or not–he was a model, and a damn good one, at that. While the profession for him was lucrative, his heart wasn’t fully in it. And he learned quickly that wasn’t the way he wanted to operate.

“I remember another chef took me aside and told me, if you want to make it as a chef, you have to cut out everything else,” he said. “So I did.”

Cooking, for the Argentina-born chef, comes naturally, something he credits to his upbringing. La Rocca recalls fire-roasting food with his grandparents at the age of just five, and how that has informed his culinary work today.

“My people have been cooking over open fire since the beginning of time. It’s in my blood. It’s in my DNA,” he said.

And it shows. La Rocca has cooked alongside some of the world’s most refined chefs and restaurants, including work that helped Barbecoa London by Jamie Oliver and Zodiac UK by Michael Roux both awarded two AA Rosettes and the Michelle guidebooks distinction.

While it’s tempting to rest on impressive laurels like this, La Rocca is keeping his eyes ahead.

La Rocca, who moved to Ohio with his family in May, has taken the reins at FYR, the sleek, open-flame concept where all dishes are touched in some way by one of six different flame-related cooking techniques. The restaurant dovetails beautifully with his familial history of cooking, but it also pushes the boundaries in exciting new ways.

“I don’t want people to think about this as a restaurant. We’re trying to tell a story; to create an experience,” he said.

Smoked cocktails are served alongside unique variations of duck breast, which is prepared using indirect heat, smoking and direct ember cooking. Likewise, the clarity and simplicity of Wood-Oven Roasted Tomato shines through, with a bold concision that’s likely new to many

The dishes prepared at FYR become a catalog of not only flavors, but techniques, of the Age-old processes La Rocca learned seated around a campfire with his family.

These dishes may represent new flavors and techniques to Midwestern diners, but now that he’s here, in Columbus, Ohio–fully present–he wants us to know them, too. ♦

To learn more, visit fyrshortnorth.com

Gregory Stokes ↑

STOKES

Master sommelier candidate and new Bottle Shop owner Gregory Stokes is the man behind Columbus wine

By Melinda Green / Photos by Sarah Pfeifer

Gregory Stokes, owner of Accent Wine and The Bottle Shop, is poised to bring Columbus up to a new level of wine appreciation with exciting inventories, a wealth of knowledge, and a drive to share it all with the city.

Stokes, originally from Westerville, went to college intending to go to law school, but he realized that law wasn’t going to be the career path for him. “What does one do with a liberal arts degree? You start waiting tables,” he said.

Eventually, he found himself working in a wine bar and knowing nothing, really, about the wines. One day, he saw an interesting job description that required a Level 3 Sommelier certification. “Okay,” he thought. “That’s what I’ll do.”

And he never looked back. “Wine is this really great cultural artifact,” he said. “It can be viewed as art, and if you like to view it as art, it’s an odd art that only exists in the moment of its destruction.

“I studied history and philosophy, and I think wine is a really great intersection of those things. Particularly when you talk about Europe, so much history and culture is tied up in it. That is really exciting. And, at the end of the day, wine is just a lot of fun.”

So he signed up for a two-day program. “It was two days of drinking from a fire hose—so much information. It was blowing my mind,” he recalled.

“At lunch on the second day, everyone’s furiously studying. I was like ‘What are you all doing?’ and they said ‘This was all review. There’s an exam at the end.’ Like ohhhh, I didn’t know that.”

But Stokes says he’s a good test taker, and he passed. “That was how I started down the Som thing: I accidentally passed the first part of the sommelier exam,” he said, laughing.

In 2017 he sat for the Advanced Sommelier exam—an exam with about a 25% pass rate.

Chris Dillman, sommelier at The Refectory at that time, mentored Stokes and told him “the best way to study for Advanced is to study for Master.” But Ohio doesn’t have a lot of access to Master Sommeliers, so Stokes had to rely on hard work rather than a broad base of mentorship.

He ended up passing that exam on his first attempt, earning the top score in the group. That score also earned him a scholarship that put him on the fast track into the Master Sommelier program.

He started moving up in the Columbus wine scene. Eventually, he landed at Veritas—and then 2020 hit.

When Governor Mike DeWine ordered restaurants to shut down, Stokes and Veritas owner Josh Dalton had an idea. “As soon as the press conference was over, I walked over to my computer, sat down, and started setting up a website to liquidate the Veritas wine inventory, to get whatever cash we could to survive.”

They ended up selling the entire Veritas wine cellar in two weeks. They then continued with the online store, making half a million dollars in wine sales that year.

That sales program, coupled with virtual tastings, eventually led Stokes to the opening of a high-end brick-and-mortar presence downtown last year: Accent Wine →

Gregory Stokes ↑

“THE MASTERS EXAM IS AS HARD AND AS GRANULAR AS YOU WANT IT TO BE. BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY, IT’S JUST BOOZE, AND IT’S FUN.”

Today, Stokes is the only candidate in Ohio “on the clock” in the Master Sommelier program. The program has three examinations— Theory, Service, and Tasting—and once a candidate passes Theory, they have a “clock” of three years to pass Service and Tasting.

The Theory exam is an hour-long, oral exam covering the entire world of wine. Questions could include “What’s the minimum amount of time that a wine must spend in oak for a Gran Reserva level in Rioja?” or “What’s the soil type in Cahor, France?” or “What’s the blend on Eben Sadie’s Palladius?”

Service is a practical business examination, and Tasting is, well, tasting. “They give you six glasses of wine, and you have 25 minutes to completely and accurately identify the grape, country of origin, growing region, and vintage,” Stokes explained. He plans to tackle both of these exams in September 2023.

“The Masters exam is as hard and as granular as you want it to be. But at the end of the day, it’s just booze, and it’s fun,” he said.

How does one prepare for this? “It’s a lot of multitasking,” Stokes said, laughing. “The theory exam, it’s a lot of flashcards. Maybe you’re sautéeing something, and in your other hand is a flashcard.

“It’s a full time job. You have to put hobbies aside for a while. Instead of watching the football game, you’re studying.”

He considers himself “very, very lucky” to have a partner who understands the demands. “Last year, when I was studying, my wife would be like ‘It’s time to get up. Before you get your coffee, here's a flight of six wines. Do it.’ We did that pretty much every day for almost six months.”

Buying The Bottle Shop when it went on the market this year was a no-brainer for Stokes. “Barbara [Reynolds] had started doing this renovation and really swinging for the fences. I remember walking through the shelves and thinking, ‘This is the best selection of wine in Columbus.’

“Accent is more of a wine gallery; Bottle Shop is more of the everyday. It’s funky, and I like that. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel over there. I love really fine wines, but I also love dive bars.

“I think that wine can feel very snooty, and I do everything I can to dispel that,” he continued. “I’m a curator and a teacher. What I’m doing here is what someone did for me at my first wine shop. I was working with so much wine that I didn’t know what it was, and I got excited to learn. Part of what I’m trying to do is show people things they’ve never seen before.”

Not only that, but Stokes is passionate about helping the next generations of sommeliers and wine experts. “I guess in my own small way, I think what this world needs is more sommeliers. Anyone who’s willing to put in the time, I’m willing to work with them to further their wine careers,” he said.

“When I passed the Advanced exam, I could have gone anywhere in the world and gotten a job,” he admitted. “But I decided to stay in Columbus. It’s a young city. I always felt that energy, right on the edge, and rather than move, I decided to stay and make Columbus the city that I wanted it to be.

“There are really, really exciting wine scenes around the world, and I want Columbus to be one of them. I’ll do whatever I can to make Columbus into that.”

To learn more, visit accent.wine

Run, Party, Repeat

The OhioHealth Capital City Half and Quarter Marathon and 5k blends block party vibes with tons of local fun to create one of the country’s best race experiences

A13.1 mile block party complete with 30 live musical performances, a 12,000-person pizza party and a craft beer brewed in its honor.

No, we aren’t talking about a multi-day music festival (but we can understand why you might think that). We’re talking about the OhioHealth Capital City Half Marathon, Quarter Marathon and 5k. →

The atmosphere is like a 13.1, 6.55 and 3.1 mile block party, and after you finish, we have the best post-race in the country,

“The atmosphere is like a 13.1, 6.55 and 3.1 mile block party, and after you finish, we have the best postrace in the country,” said race director and founder David Babner.

The event, which will be celebrating its 20th year this spring, offers both half and quarter marathon courses (13.1 and 6.55 miles), in addition to a 5K (3.1 miles).

If you’re interested in being a participant, you’ll want to start your training soon, as the Cap City Half will take place on April 29. The earlier you sign up for the race (which you can do at capitalcityhalfmarathon. com), the sooner you can begin receiving training tips, event information and more from organizers, all intended to help you have a remarkable experiece. This is truly a New Year’s Resolution Solution.

And if you’re the type that’s just in it to have a good time, The Cap City Half is the place to be. While the course supports a healthy competitive scene, it’s equally open to runners and walkers, who care more about enjoying themselves on the course than winning.

This starts with the Cap City Half course itself. With musical guests lining its entirety, the race hits a handful of iconic Columbus landmarks, making it perfect for a first-timer to central Ohio, and equally entertaining to a Cbus veteran looking to take in the City from a unique new perspective.

“You start at the Columbus Commons, see German Village, The Short North, Campus, High Street, Neil Avenue. and then catch the North Market on the way back,” Babner said. “It’s the best tour of Columbus on two feet.”

And once you’re done, a beer and pizza party with 12,000 of your closest friends is waiting for you at the finish line. Did we mention that Land-Grant Brewing Co. regularly creates a totally unique beer in honor of the race every year? In past years, Land-Grant has produced beers for the race including 13.1 Wheat and 13.1 Recovery Haze Pale Ale. The style of beer produced changes each year, but it’s always inspired by (and created for) Cap City Half runners.

According to Babner, a Columbus lawyer who now serves on the board of the Greater Columbus Sports Commission, the race was initially inspired by an of early2000s PSA touting the benefits of an active lifestyle.

He thought Columbus was ready for a celebration of those pursuing an active healthy lifestyle. He had seen several other cities launching destination races, and knew that central Ohio was capable of pulling off its own unique event.

“I knew we had something special, and we wanted to highlight Columbus as the best running city in the country,” he said.

To learn more, visit: capitalcityhalfmarathon.com