Shari Schneider
(Proctor: "Wine Sense For The Wine Dense", "Bubbles, Bubbles, Everywhere!")
Shari Schneider is the creator and founder of Divine Bar, which was New York City’s most renowned wine & tapas lounge that pioneered the genre from 1996-2010, and creator and founder of Vino-Versity®!
Recently, Divine Bar was honored as the eleventh most popular nightspot in Manhattan by Zagat’s 2009-2010 Nightlife Guide (for two years in a row.) Nine years ago, Shari had applied her experience in restaurant concept development to the formation of a wine "school" and website called Vino-Versity®. Since its inception in February, 2000, Vino-Versity® had run educational wine tastings every two weeks at Divine Bar West, which garnered an impressive attendance of 65-85 people each time, all year round.
Shari’s expertise in restaurant operations and menu/marketing programs stemmed first from her studies at Cornell University, where she pursued a Hospitality Planning & Management major and learned about wine at the famous Ezra Cornell Hotel School (…and by frequenting Finger Lakes wineries!) Divine Bar marked her establishment of a 65 wines-by-the-glass program in Manhattan, designed to bring wine tastings and explanations to the confused and intimidated. After 14 years of teaching her staff and the public about wine, she is now taking the Vino-Versity® name to its own venue, as an educational retail wine shop!
Shari has lectured at several private wine tastings and events for Divine Bar clients, been quoted in major hospitality publications and columns such as Wine Spectator, New York Magazine, and The Daily News, contributed an article to The Wine Enthusiast, and also appeared on the TV Food Network.
About the instructors:
