Sip, She Says
Female Sommeliers Reflect the Growing Power of Women And Wine

By Walter Nicholls
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 18, 2007; F01

Elli Benchimol didn't mind being mistaken for the coat clerk or hostess while she worked at Rasika restaurant in Penn Quarter. But then she was scoffed at by two male diners when she asked if she could help them select a wine.

The men, set-in-their-ways types who tend to want a Bordeaux or a Burgundy, "gave me a hard time about being a girl," remembers Benchimol, 30. But she won them over, getting them to "try one of my hidden gems, like a pinot noir from Umpqua Valley, Oregon. I wanted to turn them on to the New World, and I totally did."

Forget the image of the stuffy male sommelier. These days, diners at many upscale restaurants in Washington will encounter a woman when they need help navigating a wine list.

Some women say their gender gives them a tableside advantage when it comes to one of the most important parts of the job: the sales pitch. "Women are better at the soft sell," says Nadine Brown, the 34-year-old sommelier at Charlie Palmer Steak near Union Station. "I have an approachable attitude. I'm conscious of not being snooty and looking down my nose at people."

A Jamaica native, Brown sees a benefit from her background in social work and thinks her opening line -- "What are you in the mood for?" -- creates an emotional tie with the customer. "I don't think a man would say that. The tone of my voice is reassuring."

The average bottle at Charlie Palmer Steak costs $60, she says, but "if I sense someone is worried about spending $400, I can say: 'Trust me. I've had this.' It's easier for women to be more sincere."

She does not believe, though, that female sommeliers tend to recommend a style of wine different from what men in the profession would propose. "It's not about my personal taste," she says. "It's about the customers' experience and their style. Novice wine drinkers, men and women, tend to like sweeter wines, like an Australian shiraz, rather than a more earth-driven Bordeaux."

Brown and other women are still dinstinctly in the minority. No formal education or certification is required to work in the field, but some groups, such as the highly regarded Court of Master Sommeliers, bestow accreditation on those looking to set themselves apart. Of the 87 people in the United States who hold the London-based group's designation of master sommelier, 14 are women. That's up from six in 1997.

This year, of 65 U.S. candidates who sat for the master's exam, 12 were women (one woman and seven men passed). And for the court's third-level advanced sommelier exam, of 242 U.S. candidates, 44 were women. While the total number of applicants for the U.S. test has more than doubled since 2003, the number of women applicants has quadrupled.

Undoubtedly, though, women still face challenges getting into the business.

"The beverage industry is an old-boys club that's tough to break into," says Barbara Werley, a master sommelier who works at the Greenbrier resort hotel in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. Her own advancement, Werley says, came in the late 1980s when, as director of purchasing for the former Jockey Club near Dupont Circle, she started writing the wine list.

Women have held their own in a variety of restaurant positions, especially the pastry department, for decades. At the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., in the mid-1980s, 80 percent of the student body was male. By last year, that number had dropped to 60 percent. But women's entrance into the wine world has been slower.

"There were no women CEOs of wineries, winemakers, marketing directors, few in wine sales. But in the last 10 years that's been completely reversed," says Karen MacNeil, author of "The Wine Bible" and host of the PBS series "Wine, Food and Friends With Karen MacNeil." "It's generational. And sommelier is just the last area that women are getting into."

Benchimol recently left her position at Rasika to move to Boca Raton, Fla., with her husband, chef Richard Brandenburg. She holds certifications from the New York-based Guild of Master Sommeliers and from London's Wine & Spirit Education Trust.

When Rasika's owner, Ashok Bajaj, hired Benchimol in December, he says, he was drawn to her "because she fits the profile of the restaurant: young and hip." To Bajaj, a sommelier's gender is irrelevant.

"When I moved here from London in 1989, all I saw were these men with silver cups around their necks, unapproachable and inaccessible," says Bajaj, whose six restaurants also include the Oval Room, the Bombay Club and 701. "But now it's fun. People know so much more about wine these days, and they like to talk about it."

Caterina Abbruzzetti, wine director of the Willard InterContinental hotel downtown and sommelier at both the posh Willard Room and the new, casual Cafe du Parc, has two advanced wine degrees. A London native, she attended a two-year viniculture school in California's Napa Valley. The way she sees it, the most important requirements for success by either men or women in the field are dedication and focus.

"What you need is a passion for wine: for the science, the history, the agriculture, for the winemakers," says Abbruzzetti, 38. "There is so much depth."

The increase in the number of female sommeliers has dovetailed with women's growing buying power in the market. Research by the Wine Market Council shows that women now account for 60 percent of high-end wine buyers, those who are more likely to buy bottles costing more than $15.

On a Saturday night at the elegant 2941 restaurant in Falls Church, sommelier Kathryn Morgan and her two assistants can barely keep up with customer wine requests. And with a 46-page list of more than 5,000 bottles (some priced higher than $1,000), there is plenty to choose from.

Wine service at 2941, under Morgan's direction, has drawn praise; she was recently nominated for an award by the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington but lost to Todd Thrasher at Restaurant Eve.

A former cocktail waitress, Morgan, 39, got her first job as a sommelier at the Occidental in downtown Washington "with no formal training, no formal anything." She now holds the third-level advanced degree from the Court of Master Sommeliers. In March she retook the service section of the group's top-level master sommelier exam after having passed the theory and tasting sections. She fell short, and will try again.

Morgan chose a career in wine "after I caught the restaurant bug in college. I didn't want to be a server forever."

This night at 2941, she pops up from behind the bar for a quick consultation with one couple, then rushes off to confer at another table, where a couple from Ashburn is unhappy that the restaurant has run out of their favorite moscato.

As it turns out, they're less than thrilled with Morgan's suggestions and attitude.

"She lets you know that she knows more about wine than you do," says Sean Joyce, a financial adviser with Morgan Stanley. "When she spoke to my wife, there was this cattiness, and the claws came out."

Jonathan Krinn, chef and co-owner of 2941, says Morgan has proven abilities and is "super-organized and passionate." But he acknowledges that her tableside manner can strike some people as brusque.

"It's not easy to go up to a table and prove yourself, and it may be harder for a woman," he says. "People like to show off their knowledge of wine, and if that is taken as a challenge, there can be a sparring match."

For her part, Morgan later said that on that particular night she was simply "too busy, trying to do too much."

She said she is working on smiling more: "The problem is, I frown when I think."