Vino Ventures was launched in 2013 by Amy Neyer and Kathy Merchant to provide a creative home for sharing stories of a passion for travel, wine and food around the world. In 2019, Kathy launched a new series “United States of Wine.”
Kathy Merchant has written for Cincinnati’s Venue Magazine, French Wine Explorers, and Wine Scholar Guild, and participated in the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers (2012-13). For French Wine Explorers, she hosted the company’s inaugural group tours to Tuscany and Piedmont. An investor in Cincinnati’s 1215 Wine Bar in OTR, she helped to design the wine-flight program. Kathy provides fun and educational wine events for companies, nonprofit organizations, professional and alumni associations, and private clients, and has served as WSET faculty for the American Wine School. She is a Professionnel du Vin member of the Cincinnati chapter of Chaîne des Rôtisseurs and the Société Mondiale du Vin. Kathy is the former president/CEO (1997-2015) of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation. Her new book “Imagineers | Impresarios | Inventors: Cincinnati’s Arts and the Power of Her” was published June 2020.
DipWSET, French Wine Scholar, Italian Wine Scholar, Certified Specialist of Wine