About Marisa D’Vari

Marisa D'Vari

Fine Wine & Spirit Writer and student on the Master of Wine education programme Marisa 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 314 individuals (as of January 2010) 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. 

D'Vari is the publisher of the online magazine AWineStory.com, Wine & Spirits Editor for Taste Magazine Cincinnati, NY Wine Pairing Examiner for the national online newspaper Examiner.com, wine reviewer for Smart Wine Plus (formerly Wine Investor's Buyer's Guide) in addition to syndicating her weekly column to a variety of newspapers, magazines, newsletters, and blogs. She has written for prestigious publications such as London’s Financial Times, Robb Report, Quarterly Review of Wine, the San Francisco Chronicle, South China Morning Post, Sante, and many more.

Previously, she 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.

D'Vari travels constantly, usually dragging along an enormous wine atlas (Jancis Robinson, anyone?) In a recent six week period she sipped the finest Burgundy wine at Grands Jours de Bourgogne, freaked when an ancient ghost vaporized her Blackberry at LakeComo's five-star Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni, strolled the Big Easy's famed Bourbon Street, lunched with several Bordeaux wine-making families, and scampered sea-sprayed streets of Cinque Terre in Italy.

 

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.

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 diploma level classes at Harvard and Emerson college while also teaching presentation skills to corporations such as Gilette and speaking on the subject of publicity, the subject of Building Buzz and another 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.