Stephanie McKinnon McDade, DipWSET, Instructor
Stephanie is a wine educator who currently teaches WSET Level 1 Foundation and WSET Level 2 Intermediate classes. From 2007 to 2015 she worked at International Wine Center in various roles including wine buyer, operations manager, student services coordinator and writer.
Stephanie’s interest in wine was piqued while she was a newspaper reporter in Sacramento, CA. Her first vineyard visit was to the Sierra Foothills winery Boeger, where the steep, rocky hillsides planted to gnarled, old Zinfandel vines romanced her as much as the wine.
But she didn’t enter the wine business until moving to New York City. Here she has worked in wine retail, marketing, media and education. She earned her WSET® Intermediate and Advanced Certificates with Distinction. She achieved her WSET® Diploma in Wine & Spirits in 2010 and holds the Certified Specialist of Wine credential through the Society of Wine Educators. She was a 2012 scholarship winner to the Napa Valley Wine Educators Academy.
Stephanie has written and edited for Food & Wine magazine’s annual wine guides and the California State Fair wine-competition magazine. She was a journalist for The Sacramento Bee and spent 15 years in journalism and political communications in California, New York and Michigan. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.
