who we are
My core business is communication. I have been an AIS sommelier since 2018, although I have also happily drifted towards the world of natural wines through courses with Porthos. But my approach has always been to stay open-minded, without ruling out any path.
What really matters to me is passion and an endless desire to learn, grow and keep studying, always with humility — and, whenever possible, while having fun and helping others enjoy the journey too.
Thanks to my collaboration with my friends at Vinodabere.it, this passion has given me the opportunity to serve as a judge at two editions of Radici del Sud, three editions of Grenaches du Monde, and two editions of the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles. Nothing to boast about, just another reason to keep learning and trying to do better.
I am a journalist and the founder and publisher of TheUnique, a magazine dedicated to Made in Italy.
I believe wine is one of the most wonderfully transversal worlds there is, which is probably why I have a particular fondness for cross-pollination: whether it involves sport, entertainment or younger generations, anything goes — as long as we also talk about culture, and not just about drinking. 🙂
A 23-year-old who somehow got pulled away from the world of show business. 🙂
After graduating from the Musical Theatre Academy at Teatro Sistina in Rome, I continued acting, singing and voice acting. Then, during lockdown, I was “dragged” into a few wine tastings that definitely left their mark — I started with a 1967 Bordeaux and the complete range of Vigna Rionda Barolos, so there was really no turning back…
I graduated in Oenology from the University of Florence and continue to take part in the tasting panels at Vinodabere.it, contributing to their wine guides.
I have also taken on the challenge of talking about wine — and not only wine — to people my own age through a project you can find at Wining Giovani. I am a freelance journalist and also write for TheUnique Magazine.
At the same time, I keep pursuing my other passions, alternating between working as an entertainer with Veratour and gaining hands-on experience in wineries — most recently in South Africa.
It is a demanding challenge, but a fascinating one. And I still hope that wine and show business might somehow find a way to work together.
You never know…
Sara is an AIS sommelier and wine and territory writer. With a degree in Fashion Culture and Styling, she combines wine tasting and communication with regular journalistic contributions to leading Italian wine publications, including Wining.it, Vinodabere, Vendemmie, Milano Wine Week and Il Giornale di Viticoltura ed Enologia.
In 2025, she placed third in the AIS Best Sommelier of Tuscany competition and in the Best Italian Vermentino Sommelier competition. She leads masterclasses focused primarily on Tuscany and Chianti Classico, combining technical precision with compelling terroir storytelling.
She sees wine as a form of living culture: every glass holds history, identity and vision. It is precisely in this space between analysis and storytelling that her work as a sommelier and contemporary wine and food critic takes shape.
I’m Chiara, I’m 26 years old, and a year ago I moved to the Côte d’Or, in Burgundy.
My journey into wine began when I was 19. I’m originally from Milan, and after studying agriculture, I did my first harvest in Chianti Classico, Tuscany. That was where I discovered my passion and found the path I have followed ever since.
I lived in Tuscany for five years, working as an assistant cellar manager and earning my WSET Level 3 qualification. Then I decided it was time to travel, so I packed my bags and set off to work the harvest first in Argentina and then in South Africa.
I chose wine because I believe the vine represents a connection between people and the land. Soil and climate are fundamental in shaping a wine’s identity, while people bring history, culture and the sense of conviviality that wine has always created.
I chose Burgundy because, to me, it embodies all of this: terroirs unlike anywhere else in the world and a tradition that seems to have remained remarkably intact over time.
Now, here in Burgundy, I’m about to become a student again for a year, embarking on a specialised course in viticulture and oenology.
María Laura Ortiz Chiavetta is a wine strategist, luxury brand consultant, and writer based in Madrid. Born in Mendoza, Argentina — where she grew up within sight of a vineyard — she has spent more than twenty years working at the intersection of fine wine, luxury culture, and sensory intelligence.
She is the founder of Winifera, a wine consultancy serving premium producers across Argentina, Europe, and South Africa, and of Winelux, an editorial platform exploring wine through the lens of luxury, fashion, perfumery, and design. Her methodology — developed over two decades of advisory work and international judging — argues that wine is not merely a product but a system of values, one that speaks the same language as great jewellery, great architecture, and great music.
Her institutional roles reflect the breadth of that perspective: Brand Manager for critic Tim Atkin MW in South America (a partnership of fifteen years), Academy Chair for The World’s 50 Best Vineyards, Country Ambassador for the International Wine Challenge, Latin American Ambassador for the Golden Vines Awards, and Wine Voice contributor for Wine-Searcher. She is a Certified Sommelier (Court of Master Sommeliers), holds a Level 4 Diploma from the Grasse Institute of Perfumery, and is completing her WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines. She is also a Certified Wine Educator with the Association of Wine Educators (UK) and a Member of the Guild of Food Writers (UK).
She is the author of The Luxury Pairing Method and three other published titles. The Italian Pairing — her series for Wining.it — is the first editorial application of her methodology to the Italian wine and luxury universe. It is, in part, a homecoming: her great-grandmother, Angela Antoci, came from Sicily.
Charlie Arturaola has loved wine ever since, as a child, he hid inside an empty wine barrel during riots that broke out at a football match in Uruguay. An extraordinary story, much like the personality that has made him an internationally recognised figure in the world of wine. Arturaola has devoted his life to entertaining, informing, serving and educating people around the world about wine and its culture.
A familiar presence on the international wine scene, Charlie is able to communicate the fascination and complexity of wine in five languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and French. His linguistic versatility allows him to share his passion with remarkably diverse audiences. His career has also fuelled his endless desire to travel, taking him from Patagonia to Beijing to taste, discover and talk about wine.
Charlie approaches the wine world from many different perspectives: sommelier, corporate wine director, educator, mentor, judge, actor and president of his own wine consulting and media company. He is the only Latino to have received the prestigious Wine Communicator of the Year award from the International Wine and Spirits Competition.
He is also a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne, a member of the Confraria do Vinho do Porto, and an active member of the Échansonnerie des Papes. Arturaola has a particular talent for engaging younger generations with wine. He began training the next generation of sommeliers and wine lovers by teaching at Johnson & Wales University and Lynn University in Florida, something he continues to do today. He firmly believes that the future of wine depends on inspiring younger consumers to fully appreciate the pleasures of wine, food and wine tourism.
As co-producer and star of the docudrama El Camino del Vino (2010) — in which his character loses his sense of taste — Charlie added acting to his many talents. He also stars in the Italian wine comedy The Duel of Wine (2015), centred on the wines of Italy and the Basque Country. His television series The Wine Guys and Uruguay Entre Viñas have been broadcast on platforms and networks including Amazon Prime, Hulu, Discovery Channel and Food Network, reaching audiences across Europe, Asia, North America and South America.
His current projects include a new film exploring the effects of climate change on vineyards, produced with Cactus Cine in Argentina, as well as a programme for NBC Universal/Telemundo created around the World Cup, featuring champion footballers and their wines from Southern Italy.
More than an actor, Charlie likes to describe himself as a “soldier of wine”, carrying his infectious enthusiasm for everything related to wine wherever he goes.
Charlie takes part in wine events around the world. His world of wine, food and travel can be followed on social media at @CharlieWine.
Daria Kholodilina is a wine educator and tour organiser based in Tbilisi, Georgia. Originally from Ukraine, she has lived in Georgia since 2013 and has spent more than a decade exploring and communicating the country’s wine culture.
She is the co-author of Vinologue Georgia, holds WSET Level 3, and has been recognised as a Georgian Wine Expert by the Georgian Sommelier Association. Through her work as Dariko Drinks Wine, she writes and teaches about Georgian wine, its regions, grapes, traditions and the people behind it, while also keeping a close eye on the wider wine world.
Lisa Cardelli is an Italian-born wine professional who has been based in Melbourne since 2010. She worked as a sommelier in some of the city’s leading fine-dining restaurants for over ten years. She then moved to a journalist role at Il Globo, the newspaper for Italians in Australia and around the world, where she also curated her own wine column.
Lisa continues to write about wine for both local and international publications, including Decanter and Winepilot, where she consistently contributes wine reviews, as well as the annual South Australia Wine Guide. A certified WSET Educator, she trains the next generation of wine professionals and also serves as a wine judge at local wine shows and for the prestigious Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.
Lisa was the recipient of the 2022 Wine Communicators of Australia award for Best Published Feature Article, a finalist for the same award in 2024, and one of twelve carefully selected Len Evans Tutorial Scholars in 2024, widely considered the most exclusive scholarship in the world.
I am a Sommelier originally from Kazakhstan, and my journey into wine started almost completely by accident. My mother once suggested that we take a basic wine course simply to better understand what we
were drinking. Instead, after finishing the course, I came out of it realizing that the world of wine was much bigger, deeper and more interesting than I had ever imagined.
During the Covid, I found myself at a turning point professionally. Rather than starting all over again in an industry I was no longer passionate about, I decided to start from zero and do something I was genuinely interested in. That decision took me to Bordeaux, where I enrolled in wine school and eventually spent two years living and working there.
From Bordeaux, my career took me to Qatar, where I joined a hotel pre-opening team during the FIFA World Cup. I opened a wine bar there and was also involved in overseeing the wine programme of the
hotel. I organised wine evenings for our guests, and some of the connections I made there became much more than just professional relationships. I am still in touch with many of them today.
Dubai came next, and with it the iconic Burj Al Arab. It was a completely different level of operation from anything I had experienced before. Every day, I was meeting people from all over the world, with very different tastes, spending levels, expectations and knowledge of wine. This experience taught me a lot, not only about wine and service, but also about people and how important the relationship between a
sommelier and a guest can be.
For me, being a sommelier has never been only about knowing wine. Of course, knowledge is important, but at the end of the day, we work with people. I enjoy finding the right wine for the right person, creating
food and wine pairings, sharing a story about something and, most importantly, making sure that the guest is enjoying the experience.
At the same time, I really enjoy discovering what happens behind the bottle. I love travelling and visiting wine regions, meeting producers and other people from the industry, hearing their opinions and listening to their stories. Over the last year, my passion for travel has taken me to Portugal, Italy, Armenia, Georgia and China. I love that wherever I go, I will always find people, places and wines that I didn’t know or hadn’t discovered before, so these journeys always turn into something much more than just a vacation.
I used to always say that I was a “Bordeaux person”. Bordeaux is still very special to me, but today I don’t think I could choose one favorite region or style anymore. The more I taste and travel, the more things I find that I love, although Champagne will probably always be one of my biggest weaknesses.
Wine started for me back in 2017 with a simple course that I took out of curiosity, and somehow it turned into my profession and a very big and important part of my life. What I like most is that there is always
something else to learn, another place to visit, another person to meet and another bottle with a story behind it.
I’m a Swedish sommelier and wine professional whose career has taken me from restaurant floors and sommelier competitions to vineyards, harvests and wine regions around the world.
Wine wasn’t an obvious career choice from the beginning. I grew up with horses and skiing taking up most of my attention, but became curious about wine early through family and travel. After working in restaurants and spending several winter seasons in Verbier, Switzerland, that curiosity gradually became a profession.
Since then, I have worked as a sommelier at Michelin-starred restaurants, competed in sommelier competitions and spent many years teaching and communicating about wine. For six years, I also worked regularly as a drinks expert on Swedish national television.
Wanting to understand more of what happens before a bottle reaches the restaurant eventually took me into the vineyard as well. I have studied viticulture at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, completed an intensive winemaking course at Plumpton College in England and taken part in harvests in Meursault and several times in Swartland, South Africa. I recently completed the WSET Diploma.
Today, I am responsible for marketing and export at Thora Vingård and work as Head Sommelier at Restaurant Flora. Being part of Sweden’s young and rapidly developing wine industry means working in a region where a great deal is happening, and where the relationship between vineyard, cellar, restaurant and market is still being shaped in real time.
What has remained constant throughout my career is curiosity and a desire to keep learning. I have always wanted wine to feel engaging and accessible, and I believe knowledge should make people more curious, not less. And if I had to choose just one wine to take to a desert island, it would be Eben Sadie’s ’T Voetpad from Swartland – a wine I love as much for what is in the glass as for the history of the remarkable old vineyard behind it.
In an interview back in 2014, I was asked where I saw myself ten years later. I answered that perhaps I would be making wine somewhere, travelling around the wine world or writing about wine. Looking back now, I realise that I have somehow ended up doing quite a lot of exactly that.
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Federica Fucci, born in Rome in 1992, first found herself with pen and paper in hand in 2006. Her journey grew out of the meeting of two seemingly different worlds, yet connected by the same attention to detail: literature and food and wine culture.
After graduating from hospitality school, which allowed her to take her first tentative steps into the world of wine at an early stage, she earned a degree in Literature and continued to nurture her passion for writing by taking part in literary competitions, without ever neglecting her love of books and reading.
Since 2019, she has been a F.I.S. Sommelier, further developing her interest in wine, the culture that surrounds it and the stories that every bottle carries with it, through the organisation of tastings, educational dinners and pairing evenings. The key word behind her passion is “pairing”, in all its many forms and nuances.
Today, she is pursuing a path and a project that bring together literature, writing and wine culture, guided by the belief that it is often the details — a word, an aroma, a place, a memory — that hold the most interesting stories.
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