Giovanni Arpaia DipWSET
A uniquely broad experience in wine.
London wine business consultant, founder of Wine To One. More than twenty years across fine wine retail, importing, buying, hospitality, wine education and judging now serve one purpose: finding the real commercial problem in a wine business, and what to deal with first.
TRADE EXPERIENCE
Where does the trade experience come from?
The background spans Berry Bros. & Rudd, Britain's oldest fine wine and spirits merchant, and Oddbins, the retailer that put wine curiosity into the mainstream, where I developed the Wine-Mood concept. It also includes speciaist importing of Spanish and Italian wines and building a wine division for a food distributor, from concept to execution.
Around that core: brand management, export development, wine tourism, training, events, commercial communication and the launch of restaurants, wine bars and hybrid hospitality formats, with roles and projects connected to Italy, the UK, Portugal, France, Australia and New Zealand.
That range is the point. Most wine business problems do not sit neatly in one box: positioning affects visibility, visibility affects enquiries, training affects sales, range decisions affect cash flow, hospitality affects brand perception. Seeing wine businesses from several sides of the table, how wine is bought, sold, positioned, served and understood by the people making commercial decisions, is what lets me find the problem that sits across more than one box.
Wine To One exists to connect those pieces more clearly..
INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
Cross-market experience, not just language.
Being Italian and London-based has shaped an instinct to look outward, across the UK, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Australian and wider international wine markets, rather than inward.
For a producer trying to make sense of an export market, that is the difference between advice and access to how the other side of the table actually thinks.
The value is not translation. It is understanding both sides of the producer–buyer conversation.
CREDENTIALS
What are the formal credentials?
Qualifications
WSET Diploma (DipWSET) — Wine & Spirit Education Trust
WSET Certified Educator, Levels 1–3 — Wine & Spirit Education Trust
AIS Sommelier Diploma — Associazione Italiana Sommelier
WSA Sommelier Diploma — Worldwide Sommelier Association
Judging
Wine Judge — International Wine Challenge
Wine Judge — London Wine Competition
2,000+ wines tasted per year across competitions and independent assessments
Teaching and training
WSET programme delivery experience
In-house training built around each business's range, team and customers
DATA AND AI
Useful tools, not theatre.
Wine businesses often already have the information they need: sales reports, stock sheets, wine lists, customer enquiries, web analytics. The problem is rarely collection. It is knowing what matters, what to ignore and what to act on.
Wine To One uses practical data thinking and applied AI where they are useful: to make workflows lighter, priorities clearer and decisions less dependent on guesswork. Working familiarity with Wine-Searcher and Liv-ex data structures sits behind this part of the work.
This is not about making wine sound technical. It is about making commercial decisions easier to see.
FAQ
Straight answers before a conversation.
Who is Giovanni Arpaia?
Giovanni Arpaia is a London-based wine business consultant, wine educator and founder of Wine To One, with experience across retail, importing, buying, private client advisory, hospitality, events, judging, education and producer support.
What are Giovanni Arpaia’s wine credentials?
Giovanni holds the WSET Diploma, is a WSET Certified Educator for Levels 1–3, and holds sommelier diplomas from the Associazione Italiana Sommelier and the Worldwide Sommelier Association. He has also judged for the International Wine Challenge and the London Wine Competition.
Does Wine To One work with wineries and wine producers?
Yes. Wine To One works with wineries and producers on positioning, visibility, export readiness, pricing, wine tourism strategy and commercial communication. The work can cover a single priority area or a broader review of how the business is positioned and communicated across markets.
What kinds of wine businesses does Wine To One work with?
Wine To One works with independent retailers, merchants, hospitality groups and start-up wine ventures — businesses facing the same underlying problem: unclear commercial direction, unused data and uncertainty about the commercial role of wine within the business.
How is Wine To One different?
The trade studies wine. Wine To One studies why it sells. The work is not built around one narrow part of the wine trade, but around understanding how the different parts of a wine business affect each other.