Jancis Robinson Wine Writing Competition Published Entry
2024 Wine Writers’ Symposium Fellow
Vamos… con copa y sin miedo*
September 2026
Writing, tasting, writing, tasting. I started this because I want to write more about wine and not just write tasting notes. I’ve spent a good portion of my wine career representing wines from Argentina, Chile, and Spain. I’ve spent many days working with and talking to winemakers and winery personnel. While I learned a lot, I also realized that I often learned a lot more about the wine or winery when I was talking to them in Spanish. Those conversations not only helped to improve my Spanish but to also improve my technical wine Spanish.
Although part of my youth was spent in Puerto Rico, when I was in college I spent a semester abroad at the University of Cordoba in Andalucia, Spain. My first wine lesson there was that if you ask for a glass of white wine, it will likely be a Fino. Someone suggested I order red because it would have a lower alcohol content.
I have since returned to Andalucia, and the new world of wine there means a glass of white wine can mean something other than a Fino.
Marissa Ocasio
drinknowledge@gmail.com
*Let’s go…with a glass and without fear.
