Steven Kolpan

Steven Kolpan is Professor of Wine Studies at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA), and holds the Charmer Sunbelt Endowed Chair for Wines and Spirits. He teaches Wine Studies, a course emphasizing a country-by-country and region-by-region approach to wine. Steven also teaches Advanced Wine Studies, which focuses on enhanced tasting skills (including blind tasting) and food pairings, as well as an in-depth approach to the world wine market.

Steven is the co-author (with CIA professors Brian Smith and Michael Weiss) of Exploring Wine, Completely Revised 3rd Edition (Wiley, 2010), the textbook used in both Wine Studies classes, as well as in dozens of other academic and professional wine courses. Exploring Wine, which has sold more than 125,000 copies, was nominated as Best Wine and Spirits Book by the James Beard Foundation.

Steven is also the co-author (with Brian Smith and Michael Weiss) of WineWise: Your Complete Guide to Understanding, Selecting, and Enjoying Wine (Wiley, 2008). WineWise is a book for wine consumers, from novices to connoisseurs, and features a guide to more than 500 bargain wines. In May 2009,WineWise won both the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Beverage Book of the Year and the Georges Duboeuf Wine Book of the Year Award.

Steven is the sole author of the book, A Sense of Place (Routledge; foreword by Francis Ford Coppola), a history of California’s Niebaum-Coppola Winery (now Rubicon Estate) that received the prestigious Versailles Award for Best American Wine Book in 2000.

Steven is the writer and made the wine choices for the upcoming book, Italian Cooking at Home (Wiley, 2011), with recipes by CIA chef-instructors Gianni Scappin and Alberto Vanoli, and photographs by Francesco Tonelli.

In 2007, Professor Kolpan was named Wine Educator of the Year by the European Wine Council. A Certified Wine Educator (C.W.E.), Steven joined the CIA faculty in 1986.

Steven Kolpan is the wine columnist for Salon.com and is the wine columnist and contributing editor for The Valley Table. Steven has also written for Wine Report, Santé, The Financial Times, Fine Cooking, Real Simple, Wine Spectator, and Wine & Spirits magazine. His professional experience includes: sommelier and maître d’hôtel at the Depuy Canal House, in High Falls, NY; consultant, sommelier, and manager at the 1820 House, Stone Ridge, NY; wine and food consultant for the Roger Smith Hotel in New York City, Gigi Trattoria, Rhinebeck, NY, and Cucina in Woodstock, NY.

Steven is a graduate of the State University of New York at New Paltz and the illycaffè University of Coffee in Trieste, Italy, and is also certified as a professional olive oil taster (by the International Olive Oil Council, chartered by the United Nations). His art works (video and multimedia) have been shown in more than 100 museums, galleries, and universities, including one-artist exhibitions at The Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New York City.