Wine Girl: The Obstacles, Humiliations, and Triumphs of America's Yougest Sommelier

Prologue

Wine Girl

TWENTY-ONE YEARS OLD, the youngest sommelier in the country and the most foolish. Today my career will end, I thought.

It was early 2012 during a Monday lunch, one of the shifts given to the newbie (in this case, me), as it is the slowest service of the week and typically safe from any real challenges. Only occasionally would I sell a bottle and get to make the magnificent journey through Aureole’s extensive wine cellar. This collection climbed upward and ran the length of the restaurant, holding over fifteen thousand bottles.

Usually, the bottles I sold during this shift weren’t particularly fascinating, as it’s not a typical American custom to drink well during a Monday lunch. However, this Monday was different. A guest had ordered the 2009 Chevalier-Montrachet from Domaine Ramonet.

Some sommeliers might nitpick that Domaine Ramonet is not their favorite producer in Burgundy (a bit overrated, they’ll sneer), or perhaps a wine collector will argue that this wine was too young to drink (infanticide! at only three years old), but snobbery aside, it was a $650 bottle of chardonnay! Who does that . . . at a Monday lunch no less?

I thought of how proud my wine director would be when he saw the sales from lunch and imagined all the wonders the guests would experience when they drank the grand cru white Burgundy. I had never tasted the wine, only read about its notoriety and rarity.

The guest who ordered the Ramonet was at table 100 (in restaurants tables are numbered for practical purposes). It was one of the best tables in our dining room, surrounded by a plush banquette and pillows. Sometimes, this comfort led to loose wallets. The captain scurried to find me after receiving the order. With the wine list still carefully propped open to the correct page, he pointed to the six-hundred-fifty-dollar one! His eyes screamed Ka-ching!

I held my breath as his fingers scrolled from the price over to the left . . . 2009 Domaine Ramonet Chevalier-Montrachet . . . ! At first, I was sure this was a practical joke. As the new girl, I had grown accustomed to all sorts of ruses.

Let me just double-check, I added, hesitant. The captain’s face dropped as I took the wine list from his hands and walked over to the table, where four men lounged. They all had slicked-back gray hair and wore dark suits with thin stripes. I presented the list to the gentleman who had ordered. Pardon me, sir, I wanted to confirm your order of 2009 Domaine Ramonet Chevalier-Montrachet . . . My finger ran along the name and to the price. He just stared at me with his beady eyes.

Tiny droplets of sweat began to form under my cheap polyester suit. He closed the wine list abruptly with a clap. Yes, he said with an overt tinge of annoyance, and hurry, we are thirsty. I managed a nervous nod, rushing out of the dining room and upstairs.

In the wine cellar, there was a corner I had yet to explore. This nook was where all of the high-end wine was hidden, away from light and dangerous swings in temperature. After a few moments of scanning, I found the Ramonets and thumbed my way through until I landed upon the right vintage and vineyard. I gently picked up the bottle and noticed that there were, in total, only two of them. I cradled the wine in my arms as if it were a small child, terrified of what a single misstep might bring.

Back near the table of men in suits, their conversation quieted to whispers as I returned. Sir, 2009. I pointed to the vintage on the bottle. Domaine Ramonet. I pointed to the producer. Chevalier-Montrachet. I pointed to the vineyard. He gave a sharp nod. The eerie silence from the group crept onto my skin and sent a small shiver throughout my body.

Outside the dining room, I placed the bottle steadily down on the gueridon, the sommelier station where wine is opened, prepped, and tasted. To open the bottle, I whipped out my corkscrew and rendered two precise cuts to the foil capsule, removing the top portion that covered the cork. Just in case there was any unwanted residue, I wiped the top of the cork off with a serviette. Once it was cleaned, I dug the tip of my corkscrew in and, with a few twists plus one steady pull, extracted the cork quietly. To be sure, I followed the last step of the sommelier protocol here and wiped the lip again with a serviette. Then, the best part—I poured myself a one-ounce taste.

Believe it or not, a sommelier must taste every single bottle before serving. One bottle in every two or three cases of wine is corked, and even more can be affected by a variety of other flaws. Just as a chef would never send out a rotten piece of fish, a sommelier should never serve a lousy bottle of wine. The chemical compound known as TCA (trichloroanisole) is what is responsible for this cork taint. It won’t harm you, unlike a piece of rotten fish, but it’s a horrible taste.

The tradition remains that even after the sommelier—arguably the expert in this scenario—approves the wine, she allows the guest to taste it as well. Here, the guest is merely rechecking to see if it is flawed; it is not a tasting to see if they like it. Preferences should be established with the sommelier well before the selection. So why even go through this rechecking process? I like to do it because I believe hospitality is about love, not logic. Of course, it would make more sense to skip this step. However, at this moment, the sommelier puts expertise on the back burner and humbly gives the guest the power. The sommelier respectfully bows down first, followed by the guest’s reciprocating in appreciation (ideally).

Despite my lack of experience in the industry, I had already tasted thousands of wines and trained myself to commit all flawed flavors to memory. Still, I especially honored the tradition of letting the guest approve the wine. Many of my guests were two to three times my age; it would have been disrespectful for me not to bow to them first.

When I tasted the Ramonet Chevalier-Montrachet, there was nothing off about it. The wine was like slipping into a bed made up with silk sheets. In the glass, aromas and memories kept popping out: sour cream spread on toast with honey, butterscotch candies, clotted cream, movie-theater popcorn, sour frozen yogurt, a zing of lemon zest, freshly cracked crème brûlée, warm butter with salt, and mouth-puckering acidity. I could see why people would spend so much money on this wine.

The glasses are down, the captain remarked, pulling me out of my amorous reverie and back to Monday lunch service. He had placed white Burgundy glasses, specifically made for this type of wine, on the table.

The uneasiness I had felt before crept back. Although my restaurant training had taught me how to suppress nervousness, sometimes my body had a hard time listening. I approached the leader from the right again, pouring a taste quickly but with a calculated precision—label facing him, two ounces, a quick dip of the neck, twist, wipe with a serviette, cradle in both hands within view. He brought his lips to the glass, stuck out his tongue a tiny bit, letting the Burgundy inch in. Moments passed; he looked up at me, scoffed, and turned back to his guests. I think she has too much perfume in her nose, this girl . . . His glare turned upward and at me. The bottle is corked, take it back. Bring us another.

With this swift blow, the color drained from my face. Corked? It couldn’t be! The wine was delicious, perfect. Corked? Is he testing me? What kind of sommelier would be caught dead wearing perfume? Corked!?

I managed to stutter, Sir, respectfully, the wine has been tested, and it is sound. Perhaps you’d like to try it again?

His face turned the dark red color of Bordeaux. "Listen, wine girl, I have bottles in my cellar older than you. I know when a wine is corked. Flecks of spit sprinkled from his lips. Our food is about to arrive, and we still have nothing to drink. GET. US. ANOTHER. BOTTLE!"

My torso began to shake, and my knees weakened. I hurried out of the dining room with the bottle. What just happened? I kept replaying the series of events in my head.

The captain who took the order was standing at the gueridon with our GM (general manager). He dipped his nose into my tasting glass. I knew the two of them were absolute white Burgundy junkies, and the GM held a particular fondness for Ramonet.

Oof. The GM puckered his lips and then began to smile. It smells great, he sang in his soft French accent, adding, Which table ordered this? I told them that table 100 had ordered the bottle, but they’d sent it back. We all looked down at the dejected bottle. Did you taste it? The GM jetted his head forward and furrowed his brow.

Of course! I began. I think it’s spectacular, but they don’t seem to agree. So . . . All I could think of was my poor wine director and the pressure the restaurant bosses put on him to meet horrifyingly low costs, already unachievable unless every martini was vigorously shaken until wholly watered down. This would certainly not help. The bottle was unreturnable, as the vendor wouldn’t detect any TCA responsible for cork taint. We couldn’t salvage the cost and sell off glasses of it—who would splurge for $130 a glass on a Monday? Instead, it would surely go to waste. Half of me was heartbroken, and the other half was afraid for my job. Would they have returned the bottle if the older male captain had presented it? Or were they testing a kid they thought didn’t belong? Maybe I didn’t belong there.

Let me taste it, the GM insisted. He poured himself a drop. "Pfft . . . This is delicious! Serve it to him." No one at Aureole would ever argue with the GM. Before I could ask for help, he walked away with my wineglass. The captain trailed behind him, hoping for maybe just a whiff.

Now abandoned, I racked my brain for a solution . . . how could I make everyone happy? I couldn’t just go back to the table and insist that the guest had to drink the bottle. But I also couldn’t open another Ramonet, as it would taste the same.

The right and the wrong here seemed to be all muddled. Just before table 100’s first course was about to land, I came up with a plan. I bolted upstairs and grabbed the last bottle of the 2009 Ramonet Chevalier-Montrachet from the cellar. I presented it, only to be brushed off with a Yes, yes. At that moment, the servers placed the first course of food on the table in one synchronized swoop. The leader looked up at me in a fury—I was far behind schedule.

In a silent panic, I tried to brush off fearful thoughts. Was what I was about to do ethical? Would this be the end of my just-begun career as a sommelier? I knew that if this didn’t work it was my head alone on the chopping block.

The routine of wine service helped calm my nerves for a few moments—label facing the guest, two ounces, quick dip of the neck, twist, wipe with a serviette, cradle in both hands within view. The leader brought the glass to his nose and swirled slowly, around and around and around. I felt like a duck swimming on water, calm and collected above while pedaling furiously underneath.

He swished around the wine loudly in his mouth, sucking in air and making a loud whooooo noise. With a quick swallow, he burst into laughter and clasped his hands. "Ha! Yes, much better. Finally! Gentlemen, wait until you taste this wine, it is magnificent!"

I breathed a visible sigh of relief. Now much lighter, I floated around the table and filled everyone’s glass with the wine.

"A woman, a young woman . . . probably too much perfume in her nose . . . could there be anything worse in a sommelier? With the leader’s words, my body tightened again, this time in shock and anger. The whole table laughed as the leader went on about how lovely the wine was and how inexperienced I seemed to be. My jaws clenched together to keep my angry words inside. While I was filling the fourth and final glass with wine, the leader added one last comment. I guess it could be worse, actually. He leaned in and dropped his voice to a loud whisper. At least she isn’t a nigger."

My hand jolted, almost spilling the wine outside of the glass. The whole table erupted in guffaws, grabbing their glasses and bringing them together for a cheers. I recoiled in disgust. Before I could escape, the leader narrowed his eyes and said, "Thank you, wine girl."

I ran out of the dining room and back to the gueridon. My head lowered as I took deep breaths in an attempt to collect myself. I often faced men who didn’t like a girl telling them what wine they should buy. Or worse, their wandering hands. Speaking out against this behavior wasn’t an option. The customer is always right, the restaurant would remind us, and the word no should never be spoken. I didn’t want people to see me as a problem. Being a sommelier was everything to me—I had dropped out of school to pursue wine and I had no family or safety net to support me. Despite the challenges I faced, I loved what I did.

My breathing eventually began to slow. The captain stopped by my side and tried to comfort me. Well, at least you didn’t have to open that other bottle, he said with a wink, pointing at an unopened 2009 Domaine Ramonet Chevalier-Montrachet sitting upright in front of me. It was the first and last time I ever did a bottle bait-and-switch. I nodded and let out a small smile before quickly returning it to the dark and quiet corner of the cellar.

Part I

Age 7–14

Photo by author’s mother

Shut the Door

WHEN I WAS SEVEN, my father was offered a job in New York City, some five hundred miles from Blacksburg, Virginia, where we then lived. Mum had just given birth to our younger sister, Laura, and was very much still in recovery. She came from a line of aristocrats who’d set down roots, and couldn’t comprehend the constant moving around my father demanded.

Since her mother was a countess, Contessa Anna Chiara Francesca Maria de Rege (of the king) Thesaura di Donato de San Raffaele of Castello di Bagnolo in Piemonte, Italy, Mum said that this made her a lady, and she carried herself as such. She spoke French, Italian, Arabic, and Swahili, having lived in more countries than my father had visited.

My father’s mother was an orphaned cotton picker born Willie Sissy Lou Ellen Barran in the rural town of Crump, Tennessee. This juxtaposition of blue blood and blue collar is what I believe groomed me for the eventual role of a sommelier, essentially a highbrow servant.

Just as my parents’ backgrounds couldn’t have been more different, their passions were worlds apart. Once she became an American citizen, Mum went to Corcoran College in Washington, DC, to study art. Painting and reading books absorbed her. In contrast, my father was dyslexic as a child and to this day finds reading an unpleasant task. Instead, he excelled in math and science and self-funded his education at Johns Hopkins University.

In a later court-mandated forensic psychological evaluation, my father described his main reason for marrying my mum as the fact that she was the first one who loved [him]. They went on to have four children together; I am the second oldest.

Bored after a few years of staying in one place, my father always found another excellent opportunity elsewhere. We had already moved three times since I was born. My mum always joked that our life pattern was modeled after one of our favorite children’s books, Make Way for Ducklings, where the father goes ahead, and the mother has to bring the babies to meet him. Despite her gripes, Mum had resigned herself to being an obedient Christian wife, so she packed our things and drove us up to New York City to meet our father, who was already there. Mum squeezed us four children and two dogs into our blue Ford minivan. Ironically, this was the same car that would later take us away from her.

It was December 1997, a week before Christmas, and the roads were slick with ice. The drive was normally seven hours but ended up closer to nine with the miserable weather. I can only imagine what Mum must have felt, being cooped up and outnumbered by her children on that long drive. Reese, my older sister, was eight and a fierce navigator in the front seat next to Mum, who was frail and hid behind her curtains of long brown hair. Reese had an array of maps strewn across her legs, her feet not quite touching the floor, as she instructed Mum: "Wrong turn! No! The other way!" Forever overwhelmed, Mum started to slump down further in her seat until she bent exhaustedly over the steering wheel.

I wish my mum had stood up for herself during these times. Part of me wishes I had also interjected. But just as Reese had inherited bossy traits from our father, I seemed to have inherited my mother’s submissive nature. Any controversy made me quiver. If ever I found myself the target of a disagreement, I would completely break down in tears and apologize. My father called me the peacekeeper of the family, as I always tried to smooth out the group members’ jagged edges.

On the drive, I sat next to baby Laura, who was fast asleep. Her tiny cheeks puffed with exhalations of air. I remembered holding her in the hospital months earlier, right after she was born. At first, I was annoyed, since I had to put on a bow and an itchy Sunday-school dress to visit our new sister. At the hospital, an overly excited nurse put Laura in my arms. Weird, I remember thinking, she looks like an alien. My arms began to get tired, and since the nurse had left, I tried to pass Laura to Mum. Then the oddest thing happened—even as a little girl I knew it was strange: Mum didn’t want to hold her.

My mum had been bedridden during the last few months of the pregnancy, and the birth was especially difficult. Years later I found in my mum’s diary an entry from right after the delivery: I have great love for this baby. Laura and I have gone through so much together. The entry was particularly startling because I don’t remember ever seeing her express those emotions.

Slightly irritated, I continued to hold Laura. I found a chair that supported my arms and cradled her until the nurse came back to put her in a bassinet. Only then did I feel something. As soon as she took her from me, my body seemed to physically revolt. It was as if there were an invisible cord that ran between the two of us. I started crying until I was allowed to hold her again.

ONLY WHEN WE REACHED South Orange, New Jersey, did I realize that we weren’t going to be living in New York City. I felt cheated, the visions of vast skyscrapers and bright lights ripped from my head. In the dark, we found the house that was supposed to be our new home. Our father ran outside without any shoes. He waded through the snow, too excited to think of cold feet. I remember wishing that I could feign that same level of enthusiasm but instead only managed to whisper, "This is the place?"

Even as I became an adult, this shame remained with me. It wasn’t inherently the state of New Jersey that was embarrassing, but rather the next few years that followed. Often, I will bypass these years altogether and tell people I am from New York. Close enough, right? For me, this move signified the start of a downward spiral.

At first, Mum continued to homeschool us, as she had in rural Virginia. She wrote in her diary:

One day I was pointing to a four syllable word while I was teaching her to read and instructed Read this page EXCEPT for THIS word because you’ll learn how to read THAT word, later next week. Victoria replied in casual tones while pointing straight to the word, Oh, you mean ‘transportation’?

Eventually, though, Mum’s reclusive behavior intensified, and we became more self-taught. It started with Mum’s hiding in her room after our father left for work. When he went away on business trips, she would sometimes not come out for several days. Frightened of failing our father’s pop quizzes, or worse yet, of his muttering the words I am disappointed in your performance, we anxiously studied our workbooks together. Although my brother, Timmy; Reese; and I were each a grade or two apart, we all studied the curriculum from Reese’s books to be safe. The neurotic pace of our learning was partly fueled by fear but mostly by pride. Compared with the other children in our church, we were odd. And while we accepted that kids could make fun of us for our behaviors, we swore that they would never be able to call us stupid. We would never be the coolest kids, but we could learn more and try harder than everyone else. Knowledge made us feel powerful.

Meanwhile, my mother became more of a ghost. I would claw at her bedroom door and cry, but she remained silently locked inside.

In my diary I later wrote:

My sister called you Sleeping Beauty,

But weren’t you ugly?

Stacked bones, tired face,

A tiny waist I couldn’t hold,

Because I had tried

And you would never

Hold me

Back.

Restless, we ran wild. The only good part about the house was that our backyard bordered the South Mountain Reservation, a 2,110-acre nature reserve complete with waterfalls, creeks, and abandoned cabins. Timmy occupied himself by chasing wild turkeys, catching toads in the streams, and finding ever-taller trees to climb. Reese and I would team up as fort builders and trailblazers. We once created a rather impressive teepee (really, more of a lean-to) and lived in it for a full weekend, until it rained. Together, we created whole worlds for ourselves, ones we would have much rather occupied than the real one.

During these times, we would fortify ourselves by the most creative means possible. We invented our meals—Timmy created brews of milk and ginger ale, Reese preferred handfuls of cream cheese or Miracle Whip, and Laura would lick a spoonful of peanut butter for hours or eat lipstick like it was a banana. I came to prefer pickle juice and clumps of cocoa powder.

My mum said of these times, The depression had marched across my brain to the point that ‘weep-and-sleep and weep-and-sleep’ was the way I spent my days, alone in the bedroom behind closed doors.

Without Mum, we resorted to any form of sustenance we could find in the cupboards. As our father’s trips away lengthened, we became more desperate. Timmy, who was naturally brilliant at math, once broke down an allotment of saltine crackers for us children based on our weight and age. We had to make the sleeve of crackers last for days.

I CAN REMEMBER ONLY one time Mum cooked of her own accord, although my siblings said it happened a handful of times. Our uncle Carlo and aunt Sue were planning a visit from Italy, and Mum announced that she would make some rendition of savory chicken pockets. The recipe was an award winner in a contest that Pillsbury had sponsored. The dough company probably just wanted to sell their product, but my mum fell for the marketing, which claimed that the dish was the newest, most sophisticated, yet hardest-to-mess-up dinner out there. I knew it could only lead to humiliation.

Timmy was sincerely worried there might not be supper at all, and my father began yelling. Little Laura found a hiding place in the pantry and stayed there all day.

Mum tried to explain her reasoning. Aunt Sue was a Cordon Bleu–trained chef (which I didn’t completely understand, but it sounded impressive), and Uncle Carlo was a count of Castello della Manta, a twelfth-century fortress tucked into the snowcapped foothills of the Alps. Our grandmother the Countess Anna had grown up with Uncle Carlo. I urged my mother to consider a more beginner recipe. Instead, she made those horrible chicken pockets.

When Uncle Carlo and Aunt Sue arrived later that evening, I had never seen a better-looking couple. It wasn’t so much their features but rather their presence. Uncle Carlo seemed taller than the oak trees Timmy loved to climb, and Aunt Sue had a laugh like a movie star’s. He wore an abundant array of textures and fabrics I had never experienced—cashmere, wool, and corduroy. She wrapped a silk scarf around her shoulders, which seemed the most elegant thing I could possibly imagine. Next to them, I felt unimportant in my raggedy church clothes.

Uncle Carlo quickly put me at ease: You have the face of a de Rege! he told me as I touched my cheeks, trying to find the Italian of the king part. He also told me the history behind a print Mum had hung on our wall that we called the Pink Lady. This is from Castello della Manta, where your grandmother Anna was so happy, where your family is from. He pointed at me, and I leaned in with awe. My family was from a castle?

Of the countless rooms in the castello, there was one, in particular, the Salone Baronale, that my grandmother Anna loved. In it were ancient frescoes depicting heroes and heroines throughout history. Completed in 1420, the murals included renderings of King Charlemagne; Julius Caesar; Tamiris, queen of the Shiites; and my grandmother’s favorite, Teuta, queen of the Illyrians, or the Pink Lady. Teuta wore a long rose gown and looked toward her left with an outstretched hand, as if saying, Come with me.

After graduating from high school, Anna went