Evolving the German Wine Queen Tradition

By

Cathy Huyghe

•

•

Volume 11, Back in Time •
German Wine Queens, 1952-2022, Art Credit Valerie Kathawala

The story starts with a pedicure and a camping van. Each year when the German wine queen visits New York City, Paul Grieco treats her to a pedicure. (If the queen’s mother is also visiting, she gets one, too.) Grieco is a sommelier, vocal Riesling advocate, and owner/manager of Terroir wine bar in New York. He is also part jester, reveling in the micro-tradition of the pedicure while also pointing toward the intellectual esteem in which he holds every queen he’s ever met.  Grieco honors the queens, he said, “because we [at Terroir] are fans of history and culture and [the queens] are an…

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Cathy Huyghe is an entrepreneur, writer, and mindfulness proponent. She is the co-founder of Enolytics, a technology-centric disruptor and provider of business solutions for the wine industry. She writes about the business and politics of the wine industry in her column for Forbes online, and she co-creates the content for A Balanced Glass, a community dedicated to wellness in the wine and spirits world. All three of those ventures have been recognized for their innovative contributions, and in 2021 Huyghe was named one of the industry’s Most Inspiring People by the Wine Industry Network.

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