Chris Struck has worked in the food & beverage industry for twenty years and holds undergraduate degrees in Culinary Arts & Food Service Management from Johnson & Wales University and an Executive MBA in Food Marketing from Saint Joseph’s University.

He has gained industry certifications from the Wine & Spirits Education Trust, Society of Wine Educators, Court of Master Sommeliers, and Deutsche Wein und Sommelierschule in Koblenz, Germany.

NYC restaurant experience has included Craft, Racines NY, Union Square Cafe, and Ilili, where he recently served as Beverage Director. He presently serves as the NYC Ambassador for Wines of Alto Adige.

In addition to working as a sommelier and consultant, Struck taught beverage and marketing classes as an Adjunct Lecturer in the Hospitality Management Department at the City University of New York’s (CUNY) CityTech Campus for five years, and previously served as Program Director of America’s oldest wine school, the Sommelier Society of America.

Liz Nicholson grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois before relocating to New York City to complete a bachelor’s degree in Apparel & Textile Design. Despite her pursuits in fashion, the draw of hospitality, restaurants, and wine quickly became a path worth pursuing.

At ‘inoteca, a late night all Italian wine bar on the Lower East Side, Liz dove in and vowed to master the entire wine list - a thick “bible” of Italian Wine. In a few years she was promoted from Assistant Wine Director all the way up to Beverage Director. In 2009 she spent a stint traveling through Italy participating in harvest and visiting producers through every region except Sardinia. This “Giro d’Italia” helped her acquire the Beverage Director role at Danny Meyer’s recently opened Maialino when she returned, where she became known for her thematic by-the-glass programs highlighting different regions and grapes of Italy.

After more than three years at Maialino, Liz moved uptown to lead the Sommelier team at Marea in 2013. During her time, Chef Michael White earned two Michelin Stars, affording her opportunities to open and share some of the greatest wines in the world.

In 2017, Liz took over Frankly Wines, a staple in Tribeca, and two years later expanded the shop to service a growing clientele and inventory! Even through the challenges in years to come, Liz and a close team grew their footprint on the block to encompass a jewel-box wine bar, named for her grandmother, Della, in 2022. Della’s compact space houses an impressive, rotating wine list, a notable cheese selection, and menu nods to her Chicago roots and Italian heritage.

Liz resides in Lower Manhattan, and can often be found pouring a glass behind the bar at Della’s or making bottle recs at Frankly.

Miguel de Leon is a New York City-based wine professional with over two decades of restaurant experience. Currently, Miguel is the wine and beverage director of the Pinch Chinese, a restaurant offering traditional Chinese cuisine and natural wines in SoHo (Manhattan), and the wine director for Strange Delight, a restaurant serving New Orleans-style seafood in Fort Greene (Brooklyn). He was the inaugural recipient of the Michelin Guide Sommelier of the Year Award in 2021, and other wine credits include Imbibe Magazine’s 75 People Building a Better Drinks World in 2020, Wine Enthusiast Awards Finalist for Wine Director of the Year in 2020, and the Wine Enthusiast Future 40 Inaugural Class in 2022.

In addition to wine and restaurants, Miguel writes for PUNCH, a trade-focused web magazine, with a focus on American winemaking, social justice, alcohol policy, and minimal intervention production. In 2022, his autobiographical essay on decolonization and racism in the wine industry garnered him a James Beard Foundation Media Award for Longform Personal Essay. His work has also appeared in Bon Appétit, Eater, Food & Wine Magazine, and Wine & Spirits Magazine. He has been featured in the New York Times, Bloomberg, and New York Magazine, among others.