COURTNEY GREW UP in California's Central Valley, where she gained an early appreciation for wine and food while sampling the abundant produce at local farmer's markets and traveling frequently to the state's numerous wine regions on vacations with her family. A summer exchange program in France cemented her interest in both the French language and the country's finest export, its award-winning wines. Later, a semester at the Sorbonne during college led to extensive travel through France's most renowned wine regions and contributed to her decision to pursue a formal education in wine tasting and evaluation. It was also an excuse to drink lots of ridiculously good wine.

Courtney holds her sommelier certification from the International Sommelier Guild and the American Court of Master Sommeliers and operates a business, Your Personal Sommelier, in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The business enables her to channel her enthusiasm for wine and her knowledge of evaluating, purchasing, storing, appraising and selling wine into a livelihood. Services available through Your Personal Sommelier include tasting and speaking engagements, cellar development and management and wine list consulting. A freelance writer, Courtney writes on wine country travel and lifestyle pursuits at WineCountry.com and has also written about wine for Maxim. Her first book, "Hip Tastes: The Fresh Guide to Wine" - published October 4, 2007 by Viking Studio, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) - was the recipient of the 2007 Georges Duboeuf Wine Book of the Year award.

Courtney has passed levels 1 and 2 of the Master Sommelier program and continues to work towards the Master Sommelier title. In addition to her wine education Courtney graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in English and French from the University of California, Los Angeles and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society. She also holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where she studied marketing and entrepreneurship and was president of the school's wine tasting group. Prior to attending business school Courtney was a Marketing Manager at Universal Music Group in Universal City, California, and also held a marketing and business development role at ememories.com, a Los Angeles-based Internet startup. When she is not working, Courtney enjoys tennis, snow skiing, travel, golf and good wine.