Good Day
My name is Melanie Ferreira, I have spent my career in Hospitality industry.
The early years I spent as a pastry chef/ manager. In 2008 I opened my own Bistro in Toronto (Melanie's Bistro).
Over the next decade I paired up with many many Local Ontario Wineries and featured them in the Bistro.
My Love and Passion for wine has grown over the years, my education in wine making is informal and learnt mostly thru the reading and wine reps.
Currently I am the café Manager at the Young Centre For performing Arts in the Distillery District.
Along with the Senior Management we have made a change to feature only local Ontario wines.
I enjoy sharing my knowledge of wine with my customer and family and friends.
Given an opportunity to further my Education I would love to share this love , passion and education specially with Ethnic Restaurants where I see a huge potential to pair those flavor's and wines.
Thank you for your time.

I currently I am the Assistant Manager and Local Buyer at Kitsilano Wine Cellar. I started my wine journey long time ago with the WSET 1 & 2 but I didn't start working in the Industry until 3 years ago. I currently have the level 3 for WSET and followed with the Italian Wine Scholar Unit 2. I would like to continue my education with the Unit 1 of the Italian Wine Scholar and the French Wine Scholar.

I am a passionate and meticulous Cellar Master and Foreman that is transitioning to a Winemaker role. I have strong leadership traits that have led me to be quickly moved into a management position at every company I have been employed. My continued pursuit of knowledge has led me to a B.Sc. in Biological Sciences with a minor in Analytical Chemistry, a winemaking certificate from UC Davis, my WSET Level 2 (with distinction) and WSET Level 3, as well as the completion of the Wines of British Columbia Level 1 and 2 Ambassador programs.

I have been working with wine for 10+ years while going to school at the University of Calgary. My interest in wine has always been consistent as other interests have come and go, so I’m looking forward to educating myself in this obvious area of intrigue.

A passionate enthusiast of all things wine, Miroki Tong has tasted her way all around the world, learning from winemakers, experts, and fellow enthusiasts, always eager to talk with someone who shares in her love of the divine drink that is wine. Her 10 years of auto-didactic experience is currently manifesting itself in written musings under the Instagram handle @9ouncesplease.

Miroki seeks to highlight not only the best wines for taste and value, but to introduce the world to the people behind the glass. Winemakers, bar owners, and people looking to make positive change in the wine industry are all highlighted with Miroki’s characteristic humour, endearing geekiness, and easy-going nature.

When not sipping, learning, and educating about vino, Miroki works as an independent business consultant. She holds an MBA with specializations in Strategic Management, Organizational Behaviour and Entrepreneurship, bringing her expertise to help build small businesses, and more recently, boutique wineries. She is also an award-winning international performer and musician with a background in production currently working on an upcoming Opera Metal EP. Her festival Altekrea (2011-2016) which augmented counterculture art, was also a twice award-nominated entity, and was accepted into the City of Kitchener’s Economic Development and Arts and Culture initiatives. Altekrea bisected arts, alternative culture, business and tech, and strove to augment the profiles of non-traditional artists, and provide important, and often overlooked, business education. In 2020, she was nominated for consideration to be one of Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women in the Professionals Division.

Miroki currently holds a global roster of clients, from permanent retainer to focused projects. She has served on recommender juries for the Ontario Arts Council, Waterloo Region Arts Awards, and has acted as a third party expert and mentor for students at Wilfrid Laurier’s Entrepreneurship programs, Launchpad and University of Waterloo’s inaugural 2019 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Chinese Exchange summer program.

Miroki holds an Honours Bachelors of Arts and Business from University of Waterloo (2009), and a Masters of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University (2016). Additionally, she has acquired international academic experience at the University of Ulster (Northern Ireland), Queen’s BISC Herstmonceux Castle (England) and Hochschule Osnabrück (Germany). She holds a Royal Conservatory of Music Level 9 in piano, and is trained in opera voice as a mezzo soprano.

Across all industries she has occupied, Miroki is an outspoken advocate for all facets of diversity and inclusion. She unafraid to challenge status quos, confront injustice whilst also maintaining that she herself has space to grown and learn to be a better contributor of positive social change.

Website: https://about.me/helen_xu

EXPERIENCE HIGHLIGHTS
Helen is a highly motivated, detail-oriented, and well-rounded business professional who speaks English, Mandarin, and Cantonese.

Helen is also a Wine professional. Helen was awarded WSET® Level 1 in Wines in 2015, WSET® Level 2 in May 2016, and passed her WSET® Level 3 with distinction in December 2017. She is also a certified Canadian Wine Scholar and French Wine Professional by Fine Vintage Ltd. Recently Helen took advantage of the free time due to the pandemic and completed two online courses: Fine Vintage Food and Wine Professional and Fine Vintage Level 1 in Spirits. Currently Helen is pursuing the French Wine Scholar certification offered by the Wine Scholar Guild.

Helen enjoys analysing business needs and providing effective, efficient, and creative market-oriented solutions. For example, when Helen was the only analyst at Canada's (then) largest online food ordering company, she initiated and created a customer service chat monitoring tool. Within the first month of deploying this tool, the Customer Service team increased their chat response rate and average customer satisfaction by over 90 percent.

Helen aims to continue exercising her problem-solving and critical thinking skills in any challenges that may arise in her Wine career.

I run production accounting, forecasting and planning and full-cycle accounting for a distillery. I also like to write about wine and spirits!

Marketing communications manager and WSET Level 1 student.

What started as an interest in food, developed into 10 year love affair with hospitality, learning and growing through working in restaurants. I am currently working as a general manager in Toronto.

Rachna Contractor is a server who started working in the hospitality industry eight years ago as a cook. She's worked in India at The Oberoi, Gurgaon and in Toronto at Momofuku Noodle Bar, Marben, The Broadview Hotel and Bar Raval. Rachna is particularly fond of Spanish wines. This year she's working towards completing WSET Levels two and three.