More Wine and More Female Sommeliers

Filed in archive Wine News on July 25, 2006

I am very happy to see a trend where more and more women are joining the ranks for the sommeliers, primarily a male dominated group. You go, girls! I can say that because I'm a woman, so it's not a sexist remark.

But, really, I've been surprised since just joining the blogosphere and writing about wine how there seems to be so few women in the wine world.

This article from The Age gave me some welcomed news:

If drinkers are anxious about sommeliers, worrying they might appear ignorant in front of them or that the sommelier might try to sell them something they can't afford, they can become downright testy when faced with a "lady somme" (as they call themselves).

"I had one customer say to me, 'You're younger than my grand-daughter, what would you know about wine?' " says Stacey-Lee Edwards, a young, talented sommelier who worked with Carbonneau at Taxi before she moved to Upper House and, just recently, to Punch Lane.

For anyone ever struck dumb by a wine-list-wielding sommelier, Edwards and Carbonneau are the antidote.

"It's easy to make people feel ignorant," says Carbonneau in a rich French-Canadian accent. "But to me, it's really important to make people feel comfortable, to offer them something they are going to like rather than something I like."