A Glass with Lucy

What made you want to get into the wine industry? Was there a particular wine, or experience?

I took a relatively non-traditional route. My friend's dad was a winemaker in the Santa Lucia Highlands. My family didn't drink wine, so dinners at my friend's house were always special because we'd open a bottle of wine and discuss it around the table. This was in high-school, so it felt particularly empowering to be asked my opinion and then taken seriously. I started to help him out in the winery every now and then, first for bottling, then for harvests. One year we hosted a harvest party and all the guests joined in for a blind tasting. I won the tasting even though everyone there worked in the industry, and was infinitely more experienced than me.  I'll never forget the feeling of tasting that wine, smiling to myself and thinking "I know exactly what this is.” That's it, I was in love. 

Obviously, working at Mayacamas sets the bar quite high. What is usually in your glass, and why?

It's funny, I don't drink much. When I do drink wine I want to give it all my love and attention, and my standards are pretty high. I won't drink a wine unless I'm truly enjoying it — I like to ask myself “would I still be drinking this if it didn’t have alcohol?”— and that's generally Chenin Blanc, Nebbiolo, Gamay, or Sherry. 

What are your favorite wine regions, and why?

I love the Jura for all its crotchetiness and tradition, and because it feels like you've stumbled into a fairytale. I love Madeira for its history, and Sonoma for being this playful, evolving region that I can reach out and touch. I also love the Veneto in Italy, because it's where I fell in love with wine (and sandwiches, and life, really). I'm a storyteller by nature so all my favorite regions are united in their ability to evoke strong emotions for me, they've become part of who I am. 

You have achieved the WSET Level 3 with Distinction. What made you choose that route of study? Where do you see it leading down the line?

I had the great pleasure of meeting a Master of Wine student while I lived in London. Watching her study, taste, connect, write, and create community around wine was particularly inspiring to me — I wanted that for myself! I have to thank my employer at the time, Frog's Leap Winery, for supporting me financially. I wouldn't have been able to pursue the WSET otherwise. I jumped right to Level 3 (hubris) and am still nursing pipe-dreams of pursuing the Diploma and the Master of Wine one day. Ultimately I love learning, I miss the structure of school, and I am endlessly fascinated by the nitty-gritty of wine. I want to get close up and examine it, put my face in it. Whether I get that experience through the MW or through putting myself in the way of wine at every opportunity, I see it leading me down a path of genuine curiosity and delight. 

You write about wine and sell wine. How do the two help inform each other, from your perspective?

I've always wanted to make wine easier to understand, make it more accessible to more people. I think the most rewarding experiences selling wine for me come as a result of the client feeling empowered, and having a moment of true clarity during which they can rely on their own taste. My job is to use language and storytelling as precisely as possible to get them there, to see in their eyes that they understand what I’m saying and are excited about it. It’s so satisfying to feel that someone is connecting my descriptors of what’s in their glass. Oftentimes just making that connection is enough to make a sale, because suddenly the guest feels like they are on the inside, like this wine belongs to them. That’s the intersection of writing and sales for me — the success of both depends on making people feel like they belong. 

To what extent does language connect us to wine in a good way, and to what extent can it be polarizing if we all don't speak the same way about wine? How do you balance your WSET language with how you relate to customers?

I often think about the ways in which wine vocabulary is deliberately constructed to keep people out. Luxury thrives in opacity, and the industry really relies on the separation of those who ‘know’ from those who ‘don’t’ to reinforce its mystique. It’s part of the reason I love clarity, truth, and science — tracing a misconception about wine back to its origin and uprooting the initial misunderstanding. Like around the use of sulfur, for example. We don’t all have to speak the same way about wine, actually I think it’d be really boring if we did. But we need to share the same motivation: help people connect with the wine in front of them, to see it clearly for what it is and then make an informed decision about whether or not they like it. 

What do you like the most about writing about wine?

I love building libraries of scent, texture, and flavor in my mind, and then scrolling through them to find the perfect combination of descriptors. So my favorite part is what comes long, long before the writing — just the act of waking up to the world and cataloging it with care, knowing you’ll pull from those memories later on. It always feels like magic to me. 

What advice would you give to someone just dipping their toe into the wine business?

Really often I feel overwhelmed when I measure myself against my ridiculously talented peers. It’s easy to look at someone else’s success and envy it, or feel like you’ll never be able to compare. My advice would be to trust that your taste, your opinion, and your presence matters, and that the wine industry needs YOU, not the other way around. Measure yourself against your own metrics of success, not someone else’s. It’s something I try and remind myself of every day — it’s so hard! 

What excites you about writing for Wine Unify? 

This is the first opportunity I’ve been given in the wine industry that feels directly aligned with my personal goals. Right from the beginning I daydreamed about increasing accessibility so that we could diversify who feels ownership over wine. I think that’s the most exciting thing, not just for me but for the people! My excitement is a reflection of feeling like I (and we!) can make substantive change. I can’t wait to help share stories the world needs to know.