Meet Liubov Leonova

I trained as a historian, and for many years afterwards I worked in very different fields. For a long time I thought of history simply as something I had studied at university.

Eventually I realised that it was much more than that. It has shaped the way I think.

I am instinctively interested in sources, context and original material. I tend to ask where a story came from, what happened before it, what may have been simplified along the way, and whether the version we repeat is actually true. I like detail, but I also love good storytelling — especially when the story is grounded in something real.

That way of thinking turned out to be remarkably useful in wine.

A wine region is never only a set of grape varieties and regulations. It is also geology, trade, politics, migration, religion, family history, fashion, economics and sometimes sheer stubbornness. Understanding those layers makes the wine itself more interesting.

And, more importantly, more memorable.

I entered the wine business in 2007 and spent many years working in wine import and international trade. I also studied wine formally, worked as a sommelier in a restaurant, and later completed WSET Level 3.

When Covid disrupted the professional world I knew, I had to rethink the way I wanted to work with wine.

That was when I began building my own tasting formats.

I had no interest in creating evenings where people simply listened to a sequence of tasting notes. I wanted wine to become part of a larger story.

One of my first projects explored the wines associated with Alexander Pushkin. Later came Hemingway and Fitzgerald, literature, cinema, fashion, architecture and art.

Film became a particularly important part of my work. Sometimes we looked at what characters actually drank on screen. Sometimes the question was more playful: if the characters of The White Lotus were wines or drinks, what would they be? With a gestalt therapist, we once explored the relationship in Scenes from a Marriage through the drinks and emotional dynamics of the characters. Hitchcock, naturally, also found his way to the tasting table.

Over the years I created and led hundreds of tastings and educational events.

And somewhere along the way I understood something very simple: people rarely fall in love with wine because of a score or a list of aromas. They remember a wine when it becomes connected to an image, a story, a person, a place or a moment in their own lives.

That connection became the basis of the way I teach.

My life has moved across countries too.

I moved from Moscow to Johannesburg, and later from Russia to Catalonia. Each move changed the way I thought about culture, belonging and identity.

Living in different places teaches you that culture is not something fixed. You carry it with you, but you also absorb new layers from every place you live.

Wine works in a similar way.

A glass of Xarel·lo can carry Penedès within it: its limestone soils, Mediterranean climate, farming traditions, family history and the particular choices of the person who made it.

Now that I live here, I have the privilege of experiencing the region not only through bottles, but through people. I spend time visiting wineries, walking vineyards and talking directly to growers and winemakers.

After years of approaching wine through books, tastings, import portfolios and professional education, being able to stand in the landscape itself has added another layer to the way I understand it.

Astrology entered my wine life almost by accident.

I have always seen it less as a prediction tool and more as one of humanity's oldest — and now, interestingly, newly fashionable — systems of self-observation.

Years ago, I met a professional astrologer whose approach was thoughtful, humanistic and much more nuanced than the usual stereotypes. I was initially sceptical.

But we started experimenting.

For more than five years, we created live wine events together, exploring how the archetypes, temperament and symbolic language of each zodiac sign might be translated into wine.

What began almost as an intellectual game became unexpectedly consistent.

Each sign seemed to have its own mood, rhythm and character. Certain regions, grape varieties, textures and styles repeatedly made sense within those archetypes.

The most interesting part was the reaction of the guests.

People would come to a tasting, try the wines selected for their sign and often be surprised by how closely the choices reflected their existing tastes — even though we knew almost nothing about them personally.

That experience is the real foundation of WineYourSign.

When the online project was created, I was not starting with a theory. I was building on years of real tastings, conversations and feedback from real people.

My role is to translate that system into wine in a way that still makes sense professionally. Whatever the astrological logic may be, the wine itself has to be good, interesting and worth discovering.

For me, WineYourSign is ultimately another way of doing what I have always done: helping people understand wine without making it feel intimidating.

Astrology is one door.

Cinema can be another. Fashion, history, art, architecture or literature can work just as well.

The subject around the wine matters less than the result: the conversation becomes easier to enter, easier to remember and, ideally, more fun.

That has always been the point of my work as a wine educator.

I want people to learn something new about wine, but also something about their own taste.

If WineYourSign helps someone discover a grape variety they had never heard of, understand why they are drawn to a certain style, or simply become curious enough to order something unfamiliar next time — then it has done its job.

And if astrology happens to make that journey a little more playful, so much the better.

Every wine recommendation on WineYourSign is filtered through professional wine knowledge, years of tasting experience and genuine curiosity.

I am interested in wines with identity: wines that tell you something about where they come from, who made them and why they taste the way they do.

I am equally interested in making that knowledge accessible.

No unnecessary mystification. No need to memorise a textbook before ordering a bottle.

Just better questions, better stories and, hopefully, better wine.