Richard Baudains was born and bred on the island of Jersey. He trained to be a teacher of English as a foreign language,  which eventually brought him to Italy, where he had the good fortune to reside in the wine producing regions of Tuscany, Piemonte, Liguria and Trentino-Alto Adige before finally settling in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. He wrote his first article for Decanter Magazine in 1989 and has been a regular contributor on Italian wine ever since. He is the Regional Chair for the Veneto at the Decanter World Wine Awards, member of the editorial team for Friuli-Venezia Giulia on the Slow Wine Guide, lecturer in wine journalism at Slow Food’s Università delle Scienze Gastronomiche. and author and web lecture for the Wine Scholar Guild. In his day job he directs a language school.