Panke, Emanuela: - "Emanuela Panke is the President of Iter Vitis - Cultural Route of the Council of Europe, an international network dedicated to safeguarding and promoting Europe's and the Mediterranean's viticultural heritage. For over twenty years, she has worked at the intersection of cultural tourism, gastronomy, and heritage innovation, collaborating with ministries, universities, museums, development agencies, and local communities to enhance the value of wine as a cultural expression, a vector of identity, and a tool for regional transformation.Her leadership has positioned Iter Vitis as a major platform for European cooperation, with active participation in and coordination of numerous cross-border projects under programmes such as Interreg (Italy-Croatia, Greece-Italy, Danube, Euro-Mediterranean), Horizon Europe, Creative Europe, CERV, and ENI CBC. Her work focuses on developing transnational cultural routes, storytelling strategies, digital heritage tools, and sustainable wine tourism models that strengthen both local communities and international networks.Panke collaborates regularly with development agencies, contributing expertise on sustainable tourism, heritage-led development, and the integration of wine culture into broader socio-economic strategies in emerging countries such as Lebanon, Moldova and Bosnia Herzegovina. She has curated cultural exhibitions and training programmes across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America, promoting wine not only as a product but as a form of cultural diplomacy, innovation, and intercultural dialogue.A writer, curator, and specialist in territorial narratives, her work explores the dynamic intersection of tradition and innovation, demonstrating how wine, as an agricultural practice, a symbol, and a cultural landscape, can inspire new models of sustainable development, regional storytelling, and community engagement."Randolph, Layne: - Layne Randolph is a wine, travel, and culture journalist whose work explores wine as heritage, shaped by history, place, and the people who carry its traditions forward. She holds an undergraduate degree in journalism, a law degree, and a Master of Laws (LLM.) in international intellectual property law from the University of Turin in coordination with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Her graduate thesis, Fashion Forward or Fashion Victim, examined the legal and cultural tensions shaping global luxury industries. That work led to her role as in-house counsel for the LVMH luxury fashion house Fendi in Rome. She has educated attorneys and law students on Fashion Law at law schools and international conferences in Paris, Rome, and Istanbul. Her years living and working in Italy profoundly shaped her perspective on European cultural systems and the role wine plays within them, not only as an agricultural product, but as a living expression of identity and continuity.After returning to the United States and settling in Northern California, Randolph shifted from law back to writing, immersing herself in the wine landscape of Sonoma County. What began as wine-specialized writing expanded into a broader focus on wine travel, culture, and heritage. Her work has appeared in Decanter, Wine Enthusiast, and AFAR, and she's an ongoing contributor to Forbes.com, where her beat focuses on wine history, culture, and heritage. She is a two-time fellow of the Napa Valley Vintners' Wine Writers' Symposium and a certified Napa Valley Wine Specialist.In Wine Is Culture, Randolph brings together journalism, legal scholarship, and lived European experience to interpret wine routes as cultural systems, connecting history, landscape, and contemporary travel through narrative storytelling.
