DIPWSET · WINE JUDGE · EDUCATOR · MSC CANDIDATE (UCL) · GOLDEN VINES® ACADEMY MEMBER

Kateryna Yushchenko

I work at the intersection of wine, culture, and decision-making — as a judge, an educator, and a writer trying to make sense of where the global wine world is heading.

How it started

I co-founded a wine import business in Ukraine in 2009, learning firsthand how wine connects economies, cultures, and people across borders. That experience — part entrepreneurial, part deeply personal — shaped everything that followed.

It taught me that wine is never just a product. It carries identity, ambition, compromise, and sometimes an entire country’s idea of itself. Every bottle that crossed a border came with a story about the place it left and the market it was trying to reach.

Building a school

In 2014, I founded the Ukrainian Wine & Spirit School — the only WSET Approved Programme Provider in Ukraine. What began as a way to formalise wine education in a country with no structured path into the profession became something larger. Over the years, the school has produced more than 500 alumni in over 15 countries, many of whom have gone on to build careers across the global wine trade.

Teaching changed how I think about wine. When you have to explain why something matters — not just what it tastes like — you learn to see the forces behind the glass: climate, policy, economics, culture, ego, patience.

Judging

I regularly judge at leading international wine competitions: the International Wine Challenge, Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, Mundus Vini, Concours Général Agricole, Berliner Wein Trophy, AWC Vienna, Concurso Vinhos de Portugal, and The Balkans International Wine Competition.

When you have tasted Xinjiang Cabernet next to Pauillac, or Nashik Chenin Blanc against Vouvray, you stop thinking in hierarchies and start thinking in identities. Every panel I sit on reinforces the same lesson: the best wines do not try to be everything. They are specific, honest, and unapologetically themselves.

In 2025, I was enrolled as a Member of The Golden Vines® Academy — a body of the world’s leading fine wine professionals granted a right to vote for the Golden Vines® Awards, the fine wine world’s most prestigious recognition of excellence.

Wine Director, Be Wine Show

Since its establishment, I have served as Wine Director of Be Wine International Wine Show — helping shape one of the most dynamic wine events connecting producers, trade, and a growing community of wine professionals.

California and beyond

As a Capstone California educator, I collaborate with the California Wine Institute to deliver professional masterclasses on terroir, sustainability, and the market realities that define American winemaking today. The California programme reflects what I believe about education: it should challenge assumptions, not confirm them.

Wine, sustainability, and what comes next

In 2025, alongside being awarded the WSET Diploma, I began an MSc in Business and Sustainability at University College London. The programme brings together everything I have been thinking about for years — how the wine industry navigates climate change, how supply chains can be made more honest, and what sustainability actually means when it is not just a label on a bottle.

The academic work at UCL sharpens the questions I ask as a writer and a judge. When I taste a wine from a region under water stress, or evaluate an organic producer navigating new EU regulation, I want to understand the full picture — not just the liquid in the glass.

Now

Based in London, I work internationally across Europe and beyond — judging, teaching, studying, writing, and trying to understand what is actually changing in the wine world, not just what people say is changing.

This journal goes beyond tasting notes. It focuses on wines that matter and the forces shaping today’s global wine culture.

The journey