Stayroula Kourakou - Dragona

Stavroula Kourakou-Dragona was born in Athens in 1928. She holds a doctorate in chemical science with studies in oenology in France. For two decades (1964-1984), she directed the Wine Institute, a technological research institution under the Ministry of Agriculture. She represented Greece at the OIV, an intergovernmental organization for vine and wine with forty-five member states based in Paris, from 1960 to 1979, when she was unanimously elected its president. She has visited almost all wine-producing countries in the world on missions, gaining experiences and offering services to the international community, for which she was awarded honors by France and Spain. A member of numerous international scientific societies, a corresponding member of the French Agricultural Academy, and a member of the Italian Academy of Vine and Wine, she has repeatedly served as chair of European Union committees on viticulture and wine legislation. She has authored scientific books and published numerous scientific papers in both Greek and international press on topics within her specialty—a specialty that allows her to interpret ancient texts on vines and wine from a different perspective.