Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/913027
{ SOMMjournal.com } 91 Vanessa Wong Mary Gorman-McAdams Kimberly Noelle Charles Robin Lail Liz Thach Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan Remi Cohen Lisa Granik Jasmine Hirsch Rebekah Wineburg Leslie Sullivan Heidi Barrett Rosemary Cakebread Lynn Penner-Ash Kellie Duckhorn (or not help) move our careers forward. When I started in wine in New York City in the late 1970s, there were fewer than ten women who held significant roles in the wine industry—that, in a city of 7 million people. There was just one wine class for consumers and virtually no consumer wine tastings. There was, in effect, no way into the wine industry. In terms of wine writing, New York was controlled by five men, and because they wrote for most of the top magazines and newspapers, they effectively controlled wine journalism in the entire United States. One of those men was a friend of mine, and he convinced the others to let me taste wine with them each week. (As an aside, these men were invited to hundreds of tastings a year conducted by producers and trade groups from around the world.) The deal was, I could come to the tastings . . . as long as I didn't talk. I accepted, and I didn't talk for the next eight years I spent tasting with them. But I learned a lot from those men. I learned: —Respect for wine —How to be a disciplined taster —How to be serious and professional in my approach I was of course desperate to ask these