Valerie L. Caruso

My love for wine began while stationed in Northern California with the US Air Force. At first it was fun to go on wine tours, but then I started rounding up fellow lieutenants and leading the tours. I'd often return to California wine country and ship cases home, and continued to taste new things and read about everything I had in my glass after leaving California.

Ten years later, after retiring from a 25-year Air Force career, I moved to Italy to begin a wine studies program that changed my life. After a semester of restaurant service, I used my internship time to take on a capstone project to write a text on Tuscan Wines for my teacher; it was used the following year as a course pack for future students. From there I would seek out other learning opportunities, including a program in France, and then back in the states. While I had been asked to give private tastings for friends on Italian and French wines, I found that engaging others with a wine glass in one hand was where I was happiest.

While continuing various tracks of studies in the US, I funded my education by working for a Napa Valley winery that specialized in DTC sales, wine clubs and private tastings. When that venture ran its course, and at the advice of many clients with advanced knowledge in wine, I took off and started my own consulting business, Vino With Val, LLC, conducting custom private and corporate tastings, consultations, and teaching classes in the local community. 

I began teaching classes in 2012, and have since conducted hundreds of tastings in homes, conference rooms, galleries, buisnesses, and other properties and event spaces. My clients include private clients, title and real estate companies, attorneys, home builders, and financial corporations. 

I'm is one of about 500 Certified Wine Educators in the world through the Society of Wine Educators (SWE), a French Wine Scholar (with highest honors), and I hold the Master-Level Champagne Certificate (with honors) through the Wine Scholar Guild. I also earned the Level 4 Diploma in Wine and Spirits through the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) in 2016.

In 2015 I and a friend and fellow CWE launched the Wine Two Five Podcast, a light, fun, educational entertainment series catered to the consumer and burgeoning professional. We amassed an international following and received calls from industry listeners across the country inspired to achieve higher levels of learning in their own wine education endeavors. The series ran for over 200 weekly episodes, ending in 2019.