Event series pairing wine with geopolitics debuts stateside ahead of Tuscan launch
July 24, 2026 (Salt Lake City, UT) — This August, Enopolitik, a new series of wine-centric encounters built on the timeless practice of dialogue around the dinner table, will hold its soft launch in Salt Lake City.
The term enopolitik, coined by Stephanie Cuadra, founder of Terrestoria Wine Imports, endeavors to give a name to one of the most valuable forms of citizen diplomacy. “Wine has always linked people in spite of cultural, geographic and philosophical differences,” Cuadra notes. “Enopolitik simply articulates what a shared table, over food and wine, has always done, while providing us license to do more.”
The special edition takes place Thursday, August 6th, at ‘Mina Ristorante Siciliano, in special partnership with Utah Women and Wine, a Wasatch Front-based community founded in 2021 by seasoned wine influencer Kari Herron with the aim of “igniting” connections between women of diverse backgrounds. “What’s meant the most to me isn’t the wine itself, but what happens after, the friendships that outlast the evening,” says Herron. “Enopolitik is a natural extension of that.”
Participants will enjoy a curated tasting menu and paired wines, sponsored by Terrestoria, alongside a symposium-style program blending expert insight with a convivial gastronomic setting. The evening’s special guest Ragini Gupta, former U.S. Consul General in Florence, Italy, is an indispensable presence as Enopolitik takes its first steps, with an official launch to follow in Tuscany later this year.
Enopolitik’s premise rests on a simple wager: trust is the prerequisite of tangible intergroup cooperation and progress. It’s a modern twist on what foreign policy experts know as soft power: influence built through culture, relationships and shared experience, rather than force or formal negotiation. In an era of shifting alliances and geopolitical uncertainty, Enopolitik offers an alternative channel for civic discourse—beyond government institutions and professional policymakers, among everyday citizens thirsty for deeper understanding of global dynamics.
Such trust is harder to come by in a world saturated by screens. As digital life increasingly defines the societies we inhabit, Enopolitik creates an intentional space for something almost radical in its simplicity: the gift of proximity—unhurried meals and free-flowing conversation—as a vital part of the collective path forward.
