Marisa D'Vari

"Let's make wine fun & approachable!" says Marisa D'Vari, luxury travel and fine wine writer, now the proud recipient of the 2011 Fine & Rare Wine Specialist Program bursary (a joint effort by the Austrian Wine Academy, continental Europe’s largest wine-school, and Hotel Residenz Palais Coburg), and the 2010 AXA Millésimes Scholarship. Both are directly affiliated with her studies for the Master of Wine program.

D'Vari is also a judge for the International Wine and Spirits Competition., among others,

D'Vari writes about wine for several publications, including London's FT, Robb Report, Quarterly Review of Wine, the San Francisco Chronicle, Food Arts, South China Morning Post, Sante, and many more in addition to being Wine & Spirits Editor for Taste Cincinnati magazine. She is the publisher of AWineStory.com in addition to syndicating her weekly column to a variety of newspapers, magazines, newsletters, and blogs.

D'Vari travels constantly, usually dragging along an enormous wine atlas (Jancis Robinson, anyone?) In a recent period she was invited to taste wine at Bordeaux's En Primeur, (one of three American women), judge wine for the International Wine and Spirits Competition in London, review Burgundy's 2011 vintage, toured top Champagne houses with a handful of other educators, and visit dozens of producers in Hungary, Spain, France, and Napa...

... and she also battled baboons during a visit to S. Africa's wine regions (well, at least was astonished to see them, instead of birds, attacking juicy ripe grapes).

A wine educator, D'Vari holds three of the most important and rarest international wine designations including the Diploma of Wine and Spirits from the Wine and Spirits Educational Trust, one of 323 individuals (as of January 2011) to earn the Certified Wine Educator designation from the Society of Wine Educators, and the 'Certified Sommelier' designation from the Court of Master Sommeliers in addition to numerous other designations from the American Sommelier Association and the Sommelier Society of America. She is the first American to be invited to join the UK's prestigious Association of Wine Educators.

In March of 2011, D'Vari was awarded the Level 5 Honors diploma from WSET for completing a year long research project focusing on the topic of marketing wine to millennials. Fewer than 67 people hold this designation worldwide.

In Boston D'Vari had produced and hosted the television show A Taste of Luxury (1995 – 2003) in which she interviewed the late Robert Mondavi and Julia Child, Daniel Boulud, Adam Tihany, Charlie Palmer, Todd English, and similar guests from 1995 to the present.

A So Cal gal (and UCLA grad) D'Vari had been an executive at many Hollywood studios, working with screenwriters to develop stories. "People love stories," D'Vari says. "As a wine educator, I use very entertaining and dramatic stories about wine to help them learn." Her two books on storytelling are published and available at bookstores and Amazon.

While in Boston, D'Vari taught a diploma level course at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, served on the board of the Roger Saunders School of Hotel Management, and taught classes at Harvard and Emerson college while also teaching presentation skills to corporations such as Gillette and speaking on the subject of publicity, the subject of Building Buzz: How To Reach And Impress Your Target Audience one of her five books.

She is a member of the Society of Wine Educators, International Association of Culinary Professionals, American Sommelier Association, a Fellow at the James Beard organization, a long standing member of the American Society for Journalists & Authors, National Speakers Association, and Member of the Magazine Publishers of America. Recently she has been awarded a fellowship from Far Niente winery in conjunction with the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers that takes place at the Meadowood resort in the Napa Valley each year, and is in part sponsored by the Napa Valley Vintners Association.