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Jay Youmans MW (Master of Wine)
Educational Director
 Jay Youmans has been tasting wine professionally for nearly 30 years. He first became involved with wine in 1978 while attending Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; where he helped open and manage one of the first wine bars in the country, The Salem Cotton Company.
From 1981 to 1998, Jay held executive positions with several wine companies specializing in distribution and importation. During his career he has traveled and tasted extensively through the wine regions of France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Germany, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Canada, Virginia, California, Washington, and Oregon.
In addition to being the Educational Director for Capital Wine School, Jay is owner and director of Rock Creek Wine Merchants, a sales and marketing consultancy, which he started 1998. He is a partner in No Vineyards and Winery, a California wine brand. And a partner in Manse Field, a Pinot Noir Vineyard in Martinborough, New Zealand.
Jay has served as a wine judge for the Starwine International Wine Competition, The Atlantic Wine Competition, The Mid-Atlantic Competition, the California State Fair, and The Dallas Morning News. He tastes and writes about wine for The International Wine Review, and is a contributing author to an upcoming book on the business of wine being published by Greenwood Publishing & Press (due out in the summer of 2009). He has appeared on the local NBC affiliate channel 4, and on the Fox 5 TV morning show with Holly Morris.
Over the years, Jay has developed a loyal following for his unpretentious and humorous approach to wine education. He teaches the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) wine certification courses, and the Certified Specialist in Wine (CSW) course, set by The Society of Wine Educators. In addition, he has conducted hundreds of public, private, and corporate events.
Jay has passed the Advanced Level Sommelier Exam held by the Court of Master Sommeliers, and the Certified Wine Educator Exam (CWE) held by the Society of Wine Educators. In 2004, Jay became the 21st American, and the only person in the Washington, DC area, to ever pass the Master of Wine exam, winning the Vina Errazuriz award. The Master of Wine Exam is considered the most difficult and demanding exam in the industry.
The Master of Wine exam takes place over four days and consists of blind tasting (36 wines), answering essay questions on grape growing, winemaking, business, marketing, and contemporary issues related to wine. Part three of the exam involves a 10,000 word dissertation. For more information, visit www.mastersofwine-NA.org, or www.masters-of-wine.org
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Kristi Delovitch
Instructor
 Kristi Delovitch is a sales representative for Republic National Distributing Company and has led the fine wine team’s sales performance in the Washington, D.C. market since 2003. In this role, she consults closely with more than 45 fine wine retailers, specialty and corporate accounts and specializes in high-end wine from over 15 countries. Ms. Delovitch holds Republic’s prestigious in-house Master Level certification, has passed the Wine Spirit Education Trust Intermediate and Advanced examinations and is currently working towards her Diploma Certification. She was recognized as salesperson of the year in 2007 for the entire DC market.
Prior to joining Republic, Ms. Delovitch worked as a freelance writer, authoring significant portions of Fodor’s travel publications, including “Fodor’s Washington D.C.” and “Where to Weekend around Washington D.C.” from 2001 to 2003. Ms. Delovitch worked for TasteDC, leading over 70 wine tastings for amateurs and restaurant professionals. Prior to her work with TasteDC, Ms. Delovitch wrote two widely acclaimed Italian language educational videos that continue to air on PBS in major markets.
Kristi holds a BA in Psychology and a minor in Journalism from Clemson University, where she graduated with Honors from Calhoun Honors College. During this time, she attended Lorenzo D'Medici college of Culture and Language in Florence, Italy for one year. Her hobbies include traveling to wine regions around the world, spending time with her husband and 2-year old son, and photography.
Laurie Forster
The Wine Coach®
 Laurie Forster, The Wine Coach® is a wine educator, writer and author of the award winning book The Sipping Point: A Crash Course in Wine. After a successful career in software sales, Laurie decided she was ready for a life change and began to realize that her biggest passions—wine and people—could be parlayed into a new career. Now as The Wine Coach® she blends her training as a professional sommelier with her experience as a life coach to help people connect with wine and each other. Laurie’s specialty is creating unique corporate keynotes, team building events and group tasting seminars where she can deliver on her mission to demystify wine one glass at a time.
In 2002, she began her wine career in Manhattan where she studied with the American Sommelier Association to obtain her certificate in Viticulture and Vinification. Laurie has since earned an Advanced Certificate with the Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET), completed her first step towards certification with the Court of Master Sommeliers and has trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley. Her wine travels include France, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, California, Oregon and all up and down the east coast.
Laurie is a regular contributor to several magazines including Baltimore Style and What’s Up Annapolis magazines; a sought after guest expert on radio stations across the country and has her own weekly radio show entitled Something to Wine About® on WBAL 1090AM. Her award winning book The Sipping Point: A Crash Course in Wine, reflects her fresh perspective on wine education and has received rave reviews. To find out more visit: www.thewinecoach.com
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David D. Denton, CWE, CSS
Instructor
 David is the only American faculty member of the Wine Academy of Spain in Madrid and is a sommelier at Charlie Palmer Steak in Washington , DC.
He holds all three certifications from the Society of Wine Educators, the Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW), the Certified Specialist of Spirits (CSS), and the Certified Wine Educator (CWE), and holds the Official Sherry Educator title from the Consejo Regulador of Sherry. He is the head sommelier for many prestigious events including Robert Parker's master tasting in Logrono, Spain, Staglin Family Vineyards' annual Music Festival in Napa Valley, the Society of Wine Educators annual conference in Monterey, CA, Washington, DC, New Orleans, LA, and Sacramento, CA, and the Vinoble Fortified and Dessert Wine Festival in Jerez, Spain among others. He resides in Arlington,VA with his wife Maria.
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Caroline B. C. Hermann, DWS, CSW
Instructor
Caroline Hermann holds a Diploma in Wine Studies (DWS) with merit and an Advanced Certificate with distinction from the London-based Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET). She is a Certified Specialist in Wine (CSW) with the Society of Wine Educators, and is a Master of Wine candidate. She has researched and written on a variety of global wine issues, from the French wine crisis to the success of Champagne, biodynamic viticultural practices, rosé wine trends, and wine competitions.
Caroline lives in Washington D.C., where she is a WSET and CSW instructor for the Capital Wine School and is in wine retail sales with Whole Foods Market. Her interest in vineyard management and winemaking stem in part from her longstanding commitment to environmental protection, a commitment she practices every day as an attorney for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
No matter where in the world she lives or travels, Caroline has enthusiastically sought out the best food and wine that region has to offer. Prior to moving to Washington D.C., she lived in San Francisco where she balanced her law firm responsibilities with exploring California’s most famous Napa and Sonoma areas to its oldest vineyards in the Sierra Foothills dating back to the Gold Rush. Before law school, she was an equities analyst in international finance with Creditanstalt Securities (now Bank Austria), where she lived in Prague, Czech Republic, and London, England. There, she acquainted herself with copious vinobrani harvest festivals along the Czech-Austrian border which celebrate the first press burcak, and braved wines from communist state-run wineries. She also held a teaching fellowship at Athens College in Greece, and embarked on a year-long critical analysis of the finer points of retsina and Greece’s indigenous varietals. Although she found no vines planted in the Tian Shan Mountains during her multiple China, Kazak, and Kyrgyz treks, she looks forward to China’s emergence onto the global wine stage.
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