Robin Kick
MASTER OF WINE (USA)
Originally from the Chicago area, Robin has spent most of her adult life living in France, the UK and now Lugano, Switzerland. For almost 20 years, she has been fortunate to call the wine world her work home.
While working at the Université de Nice as an English lecturer, she changed career path after participating in several tasting courses at Burgundy’s Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne (BIVB). The inspirational experience led to a four-month full-time professional course at the renowned Université du Vin de Suze-la-Rousse in France’s Rhône Valley, earning the diploma, “Sommelier Conseil”.
The knowledge and experience she accrued launched her into a position at Christie’s auction house in Beverly Hills, California as a wine specialist. Here, she spent four years procuring, negotiating, estimating, authenticating, educating on collection strategies and tasting from some of the most renowned wine collections.
A move to London, England led to roles as marketing manager for Fine & Rare Wines, one of the country’s top wine dealers, as well as wine buyer for Goedhuis & Co, an award-winning fine wine merchant, renowned for its Burgundy and Bordeaux list, with offices in both the UK and Hong Kong.
Over the past 20 years, she has sourced wines and exclusive labels from producers across all categories, focusing on the classic wine regions of Europe, particularly France and Italy, as well as various New World countries.
After having completed additional professional tasting courses at University of California – Santa Barbara, University of California – Davis and the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, she embarked on the Master of Wine. After many years of hard work and study, she finished all elements of the programme in 2014, following the successful completion of her dissertation of original research, “An Investigation of Whole Cluster Fermentation in Pinot Noir in the Côte d’Or”.
Besides commercial projects, speaking and inspiring others about wine has been one of the activities she has enjoyed most. So, over the years, she has organised and hosted wine tastings, dinners, tasting trips to wine regions, educational wine courses and counts the WSET Educator certification amongst her credentials.
When time allows, she participates as a wine judge in such competitions as Decanter World Wine Awards (London, UK), London Wine Competition (London, UK), Radici del Sud (Bari, Italy), Bacchus International Wine Competition (Madrid, Spain), Berliner Wein Trophy (Berlin, Germany), The Balkans International Wine Competition (Sofia, Bulgaria), Mondial des Pinots (Sierre, Switzerland) and Vinitaly’s 5StarWines (Verona, Italy).