Angie Duran knows a thing or three about women in the wine business. In nine out of her 10 years in restaurant management and operations, she’s worked with female sommeliers and wine directors. When she launched Bottles Wine Garden in Foggy Bottom this spring, she tapped sommelier Erika Parjus to build an inventory of wines from female winemakers and owners. So when she learned that Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema had missed an opportunity to name a single local female sommelier during his weekly live chat recently, she fired up Instagram and started posting.
Her posts and others’ gave way to action. Within a matter of hours, the women of D.C.’s wine world began compiling a list of female-identifying wine professionals in D.C. The total is up to 79 and counting, and is freely available to restaurant patrons, journalists, and, yes, critics. “I want everyone to know who these talented women are, where they work, and how we can support them,” Duran says.
Sietsema’s chats are must-reads for the region’s restaurant industry, says Tammy Gordon, a media relations professional and wine scene regular who responded to Duran’s call and helped organize the list. Restaurant PR teams want to know what spots are getting buzz, she says, and restaurant staff monitor the chats to see if someone mentions a good or bad experience at their establishment.
On July 27, a reader asked Sietsema to recommend restaurants with female sommeliers. “I don’t know all their names,” Sietsema responded, then named five restaurants and asked his audience for suggestions. The audience response registered just above crickets; an anonymous commenter mentioned three more restaurants, and Sietsema agreed with those suggestions, but no individual people were named.
Duran learned about the chat on August 3. “I was shocked that no one wrote in,” she says, adding that she “expected to see more follow-up from readers and Tom” after the chat. “I felt it was a wasted opportunity to showcase a really strong aspect of our city.”
Tags on tags on tags
Soon after Duran posted to Instagram, the dam broke. “A lot of my women friends who work in wine started posting about it,” recalls Jen Anderson, manager and sommelier at Maxwell Park wine bar in Shaw. People tagged friends and colleagues to get their attention, some maxing out Instagram’s 20-person tagging limit, Anderson says. Amid the fray, Gordon and Duran decided to start the list. Other local women wine pros volunteered to help. The resulting Google doc is a living document that the group plans to maintain and update as needed.
DCist reached out to Sietsema for comment on the groundswell. “The takeaway for me? Pride in how many women play a major role in how well Washington drinks,” he says.
“I don’t think Tom had ill will…I think he’s probably annoyed at himself” that names eluded him, Gordon says. “I just didn’t want him to be able to make that mistake again.” The same goes for anyone involved in food and wine in the region, she adds. She hopes journalists and hiring managers alike will use the list instead of relying only on their memories, which might default to a white male sommelier and overlook female-identifying wine professionals or those of color.
Diane Gross, co-owner of Cork Wine Bar & Market, agrees. An individual’s network is only so big, so “a list of resources and knowing who to talk to are some of the best ways to make sure that you’re being deliberate” when hiring, she says. She plans to use the list to discover new restaurants to try, and to recruit women wine business owners to Regarding Her DC, a newly-formed chapter of an organization that empowers female-identifying food and beverage entrepreneurs in the region. (Gross serves on its board.)
“It was really great to see this list put together because I believe visibility is important in this industry and saying people’s names is a big part of that,” Anderson says. At first, she felt some disappointment that the vast majority of posts about the list on her social media feeds were from female-identifying colleagues. But she’s since had conversations with male colleagues who’ve privately expressed support but are unsure how best to help.
“I think some people are trying to figure out their role” in a way that will center women’s voices, Anderson says. “It’s good to see it being done in a thoughtful way,” she says. She has encouraged all her friends to highlight female-identifying wine pros who mentored them or who they admire.
“Men are our allies” and it’s important that they be included in the mission to elevate women in wine, Gross adds. “There are still so many men in positions of power.”
From Instagram to action
Women at the top of the wine world are rare; there are only 28 females among the 172 members of the Americas chapter of the Court of Master Sommeliers — the pinnacle of sommelier certifications. Sources who spoke with DCist weren’t aware of an authoritative census of all women in wine, so it’s difficult to determine for certain whether D.C. has a greater or lesser proportion of female wine pros compared to other cities.
What every city has in common is that obtaining sommelier certification requires years of investment and thousands of dollars for coursework and exams. Those barriers to entry keep underrepresented groups from getting ahead, says Gordon, who is an adviser to the group Black Wine Professionals.
Watching D.C.’s women wine pros join forces last week was nothing short of “breathtaking,” says longtime sommelier and consultant Nadine Brown. “When I started I could name… maybe a couple of other women in the wine sphere. But to see this incredible growing list…it’s pretty amazing,” she says.
“I know Tom,” she says of the WaPo critic. “The fact that [his chat] was live made a difference to me,” because in that environment, questions arrive rapid-fire, with no time to do additional research. It’s important to think about the big picture of what women in wine must deal with daily, she adds. “There’s a lot of blame to go around.”
When Brown took over the wine program at D.C.’s Charlie Palmer Steak in 2005, “I would definitely get some surprise looks or comments that I was a female Black wine director from Jamaica,” she says. While she thinks there’s less of that discriminatory attitude today, that doesn’t mean that barriers have disappeared. Visibility is an issue; Brown says that she’s benefitted from feature-length stories that elevated her profile. What’s more, some restaurant websites don’t name or highlight their sommeliers or wine directors, she adds.
Women, still so often the primary caregiver in a family, also face hurdles in the industry. Sommeliers must work nights and long hours, Brown points out. After leaving Charlie Palmer, Brown, a mom of two, joined a wine and gourmet food emporium as general manager and sommelier; it has since closed. Now she runs a wine consulting and events company, which gives her more flexibility, she says — but she sometimes misses the energy of working a restaurant floor.
“I think a lot of women still leave the industry when they have kids. And everyone does what they need to do for their family,” she says. “But I think, like myself, there are women who would like to stay.” She hopes that the list can be a resource when restaurant industry organizations plan conversations about child care, health insurance, and other tools for retaining talent.
List of women in wine becomes a living record
While most consumers aren’t in a position to give sommeliers better workplace benefits, anyone can support female-identifying wine pros, Duran says. The list makes it easy to choose restaurants with women sommeliers or wine directors or women-owned or -managed wine shops. Even something as easy as following women sommeliers on Instagram raises their profile and makes them more appealing to potential employers, she says.
Duran and her colleagues also encourage people to support organizations that empower women in wine, including Women of the Vine & Spirits, Black Wine Professionals, Hispanics in Wine, The United Sommeliers Foundation, and The Roots Fund.
The “DC Women in Wine” list joins similar resources from many fields, including ones as different as political science and organic chemistry. “Whether you work in tech, science, or whatever, what I hope these types of lists do is educate,” Gordon says. “This isn’t about shaming. It’s about educating and saying, ‘We know that you didn’t see us before. Here’s a list. Now you can’t unsee us.’”
For those who’d like to show support in style, organizers are starting to plan a special evening event highlighting D.C.’s women in wine in the near future. “When all is said and done, the only emotions I am left with are admiration and joy,” Duran says. Thanks to the list, “I know connections have been made. It truly is a strong reminder that we’re all here for each other.”
