Cheers to Change

Celebrated sommelier Michael Flynn departs Mansion on Turtle Creek for new wine adventure

After more than three decades in restaurant service, Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek sommelier Michael Flynn is leaving his post as one of the city’s best wine stewards for a job with Favorite Brands, a small fine wine distributorship in Texas. A new division and position were created especially for him.

Flynn will be working with high-quality wines from Europe, Italy, France, Spain and Austria. “I’ll be the manager of a collection of wines that get less attention than they deserve,” he says. “I guess you could call them ‘geeky wines.’ They’re suitable for someone who’s been a sommelier for 26 years.”

“I’ll be the manager of a collection of wines that get less attention than they deserve,” Flynn says. “I guess you could call them ‘geeky wines.’”

Flynn, who has an advanced diploma from the Court of Master Sommeliers, began working at the Mansion in 2007. There he oversaw the wine inventory and beverage programs, trained the service staff and led wine events like the popular wine chats. He arrived in Dallas after a remarkable stint at Kinkead’s in Washington, D.C., where he was nominated three times for the James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine Service.

On his Facebook page, Flynn wrote that he had no idea that his first job as a waiter during graduate school in Georgetown would ignite a lifelong passion in the hospitality business. For many years he triumphed, even during times of great change — computerized point-of-sale systems and OpenTable, culinary revolutions and James Beard Awards, celebrity chefs and movie star sommeliers — but he decided a change was in order as he approached his 60th birthday.

“Looking ahead to this landmark next year, I had to ask, ‘How long can I continue to do this?’” he says. “It is extremely physically demanding. Being on your feet for 10-11 hours a day, running up and down the stairs, you’re covering a lot of ground. I’m blessed I don’t have back or foot problems, but I’m going to be slowing down.

“I thought, with my knowledge and experience and contacts, there has to be another role I can play. So I began speaking to a few people, and things started to congeal around a couple of ideas.”

Flynn, who says he has been “overwhelmed” by the outpouring from friends and colleagues, departs the Mansion on July 12. Then he’ll spend a much-deserved week off at a lakehouse in New York before starting his new gig.

“Late summer is a downtime in the market, so I’ll be on the learning curve for a few weeks and then go right into Texsom, the wine conference, where I’ll play a good-size role with Favorite Brands,” he says.

He is also finishing a book, a professional memoir. “I began writing it about a year and a half ago,” he says. “I’m almost 200 pages into the manuscript. I’m getting into the back stretch.

“The working title is “Vintage Gifts: My Life as a Sommelier. It’s not a tell-all. It’s a tell-some.”

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Blending cultures

Dallas Matcha Club brings community together over trendy green tea

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Matcha

Members of a unique Dallas social club are bonding over the world's trendiest drink: matcha. The Dallas Matcha Club (DMC) aims to foster a community through a shared love of matcha, while supporting local businesses and making new friends.

Matcha is rapidly growing in popularity worldwide, with the global market projected to reach $6.35 billion by 2029. The tea has its origins in China, but it was developed and refined in Japan; tea leaves are ground into the green powder that's used for matcha lattes and smoothies, whose appeal has skyrocketed in recent years — especially among Gen-Z.

DMC Founder Aaliyah Iwamoto created the social club in October 2024 after moving to Texas from Hawaii.

“Since I'd just moved, I wanted to get to explore the city,” Iwamoto says. “I figured trying new cafes was the perfect way to do it ... I was hoping to meet new people."

Iwamoto, who is of Japanese heritage, says matcha had been a part of her life long before it became buzzy. Whenever she visits Japan, she brings back matcha tins from Nishio — and on a previous trip, even toured a matcha farm.

“When I first started [DMC], I didn't know that [matcha] was going to get as big as it did and have such a global impact,” Iwamoto says.

Now she is parlaying her love of matcha into a social experience with dozens of other matcha enthusiasts in North Texas.

On "matcha meetups," club members visit local coffee shops and matcha hot spots together, from downtown Dallas to Fort Worth to McKinney.

The group also hosts events at which members can gain new skills and hobbies. Matcha-specific activities have included classes where they've made chawans, or “matcha bowls,” as well as matcha-whisking workshops. They've also hosted more general-interest events such as paint and sips, Pilates classes, bracelet making, picnics, yoga sessions, and more.

Their most recent event was a Matcha Winter Market with La Maison Bleue Cafe, which included a Christmas toy drive for Children’s Health Plano.

The Dallas Matcha Club on one of their meetups.Photo courtesy of Dallas Matcha Club

While some events have drawn as many as 150 attendees, most see about 30 to 50 people. Members are a diverse group of primarily 20- and 30-somethings at various stages of life — from parents who come with their kids to college students.

“I feel like there's a good mix of people from all different places, too, not just Texas," Iwamoto says.

What makes matcha such a community connector is its ties to a culture, she says.

“'It’s not just a drink. There's a whole process that goes into making the matcha, and a whole process into making your latte at home,” Iwatmoto says. “People are learning about the different tools that you use to make matcha, which are all Japanese ... people are learning through enjoying matcha."

The club’s Instagram page, which has nearly 5,500 followers, proclaims, "Whether you’re an avid matcha lover or matcha newbie, the Dallas Matcha Club is the community for you!"

Iwamoto underscores that DMC is a welcoming group for anyone.

“Most of the people that attend like matcha, but there are some people who are new to it," she says. "There's also some people who just tag along with their friends and they're more of a coffee person. Anyone's welcome."

Anyone interested in joining the Dallas Matcha Club can follow their Instagram @dallasmatcha and fill out the membership form, which is linked in their Instagram bio. There is no fee to become a member of the DMC.

club matcha tea coffee