Netherlands

Marco Herrouz

Marco is an Italian wine educator and comms director, living in Amsterdam. Born in Turin to a couple with origins and ties spread across the entire Mediterranean (Sicily, Algeria and Tunisia), Marco from a young age was interested in international politics. Alas, “it didn’t take long before [he] could realise that without the financial support of a wealthy family, [his] dream of becoming a diplomat would not come true”. Undeterred, Marco successfully pursued his Bachelor’s degree in International Relations, and it was in this way that he “entered the professional world of wine”, as to support himself while he studied he began working in fine-dining restaurants. After completing further studies abroad and an MSc in Communications Science at the University of Amsterdam, Marco began working for B Lab Europe, “a non-profit organisation whose aim is to transform the global economy to benefit all people, communities and the planet”. In this role, we has been able to work with B Corps such as Feudi du San Gregorio and Symington Family Estates, and after 5 years with B Lab he realised that wine is his “absolute passion”. It is saddening, then, that after having thrown himself into his wine studies (gaining DipWSET in 2021), Marco has “faced a lot of discrimination in the wine industry”. Often, he is “the only person of colour among the students”, and he has never been taught by “a non-caucasian teacher”. At times, he has even “attended wine related events where [he] was the only person of colour together with the waiters and janitors” and “was often mistaken for one of them”. Tired of the exclusivity and lack of accessibility into the wine industry, Marco strongly wishes to work towards improving inclusion and bringing his unbiased, “Pan-Mediterranean perspective” to bear.