Hi, I’m Rapha.

I spent 15 years in architecture and corporate marketing before a wine class changed everything. A decade later, I’ve guided casual drinkers and industry professionals through thousands of bottles, taught countless students, and worked the floor as a somm at a Daniel Boulud restaurant in D.C.

Here’s what I learned: the key to understanding wine isn’t memorizing facts. It’s training your palate through structured, comparative tasting.

That’s what I teach through The Polished Palate.

I earned the Certified Sommelier pin. WSET Level 3. Certified Specialist of Wine. I tasted thousands of bottles and taught hundreds of students.

Then I took the WSET Diploma in London. Unit 6, the sparkling wine paper, I passed with merit. Unit 1, the one on the business of wine and what the industry wanted me to memorize about itself, I failed.

That’s when it clicked. The Diploma wasn’t asking me to be a better taster. It was asking me to be a better student of the wine business. Those are two different things. I walked away in 2019.

And I started building what I actually wanted: an education in perception. Not what to think about wine. How to perceive it, in your own mouth, on your own terms.

That’s what The Polished Palate is. And it’s what The Resonance Method teaches, stage by stage.