Don’t be intimidated by the sommelier, wine is fun

Drinking wine is supposed to be fun, and sommelier Marsha Wright couldn’t agree more.

“A lot of people think of sommeliers as stuffy, with the white cloth draped over their arm, trying to upsell you a $1,000 bottle of wine,” Wright said. “That’s not what it’s about. We like to have conversations, find out what you like. I make it fun.”

Wright is the corporate lead sommelier with DineAmic Hospitality, a group that currently has 14 restaurants in the city and suburbs. She works with their Greek brands — Violí in Oak Brook and Lyra in Chicago’s Fulton Market.

She said the job of a sommelier has evolved over the years. There’s a lot more to it than just selling wine on the restaurant floor to guests.

“Now it’s wine buying, it’s education, it’s meeting with my winemakers, taking trips, doing research, working with the culinary team,” she said. “That’s what I love about it.”

Her work with DineAmic involves creating and updating the wine list, making specials, education and more. She holds monthly food and wine tastings with the staff so they can pass informed recommendations along to the guests.

“I love sharing knowledge, especially with the staff since they’re the ones on the front lines,” she said. “When our staff tells someone that this wine pairs well with this food, they’re not just saying it, it’s because they’ve actually tasted it.”

She says her educational approach with staff and guests is to keep it basic.

“Just break it down so the guest can understand it with words like bright, acidic, minerality, fresh, lively,” she said. “You don’t have to say, ‘Oh, it has phenolic acidity to it.’ No one knows what that means.”

Wine dinners are one of her favorite ways to educate guests in a way that they’ll enjoy.

“They’re a great opportunity to taste, explore, kind of expand your palate. And you can introduce someone to thinking of food and wine together,” she said.

She works with the chef to plan the events, and they taste the wines together to craft the menu. Violí recently held their second wine dinner, which featured Caymus wines.

“It’s a collaborative effort, chef and ‘somm,’” Wright said. “Most places I’ve been, that isn’t normally what happens. But it’s food and wine, so let’s taste them together.”

She said they plan to make the wine dinners a fixture, with the next one scheduled for May with a rosé focus.

Wright isn’t just trying to change people’s perceptions about what a sommelier does, but also who can be one.

Recent research shows that less than a third of sommeliers identify as women. Only 11% of sommeliers are Black, which makes her a subset of a subset.

“I go to tastings with other ‘somms’ and it would all be men, and I’m usually the only African American in the room,” she said. “I started doing the research and the (representation) numbers were just frightening. There’s not a lot of us in what I do, or winemakers or CEOs at any of the companies.”

Wright said she hopes her example will help others realize that it’s a great job for anyone with a passion for wine.

“I think what a lot of it is is fear, because it is an industry dominated by white males and women can feel intimidated by that, just like any industry,” she said.

Wright got started in wine by, well, drinking it. She was working in accounting and finance about 25 years ago when she started reading a bunch of books and studying about what was in the glass she so frequently found in her hand.

“I realized, hey, I think I really like this,” she said.

She fully submerged herself in learning about wine and started taking classes. Before long she cashed in her 401(k) and jumped into wine full-time.

Wright started in retail at WineStyles in Naperville, quickly moving up to being in charge of wine buying for the store. From there she worked in other retail shops, including Binny’s for a time, before making the move to hospitality.

It was working in restaurants where she found her niche.

“I formulated the connection of food and wine and marrying them together to take the guests on a culinary journey and creating the most extraordinary experience,” she said. “Drinking wine is fun, talking about wine is fun, so learning about it should be too.”