Bridie Stafford was passionate about wine during her long and varied career in Finance and Banking. After many years of drinking wine and going to a lot of wine tastings, she asked herself “why do I like some wines and not others?”

Bridie set out to find the answer to that question. She found it pretty quickly (you will have to read the blog to find clues to that answer) but got hooked on tasting new wines and grape varieties she had never tasted before. Curious and wanting to know more lead her to dive head first into the world of wine …. a world she suspects that she will never emerge from.

In diving into this world, she obtained the following qualifications:

• DipWSET (Level 4 Diploma) and was Dux of the Sydney Wine Academy in 2024 (both academic and tasting)

• French Wine Scholar (Wine Scholar Guild)

• Italian Wine Scholar (Wine Scholar Guild)

• Spanish Wine Scholar (Wine Scholar Guild)

• Bourgogne Master-Level Certification (Wine Scholar Guild)

• Valpolicella Scholar Advanced Level (Valpolicella Conzorzio Tutela Vini)

• Level 1 Capstone, California Wine Institute

She is currently studying to become a German Wine Scholar (Wine Scholar Guild) and also has a Diploma of Aromatherapy, which comes in handy when tasting wine.

In 2025 Bridie was an Associate Judge at the Royal Sydney Wine Show and is pursuing her wine judging career.

All of Bridie’s reviews in this blog are completely independent and reflect her personal opinion: she has not been paid or sponsored to review these wines.