He has lived in Vancouver, Laguna Beach, Whistler Mountain, New York City, Paris, and Rome, and now resides on a wine estate in Tuscany with his wife, painter and winemaker Candace Máté, and their son, Peter.
For much of their first twenty years together, Máté and his wife lived on sailboats, traveling, photographing and occasionally publishing books on sailing.
His first book, From a Bare Hull, written when he was 28, was cited by Yachting magazine as "worthy of a much older man with a lifetime of boat-building experiences."
It recounts their first three years ("Charming, …lively…Titanic in appeal," — Washington Post), while the second, A Vineyard in Tuscany, is the story of their converting an 800-year-old abandoned friary and its lands into a now world-acclaimed winery.
The third in the series, The Wisdom of Tuscany: Simplicity, Security and the Good Life (W.W. Norton & Company; 20 October 2009), examines our "chaotic, crises-driven society: and offers an alternative based on centuries-old Tuscan tradition.