T

he role women play in the wine industry continues to increase in all capacities. From farm to table, women are growing grapes as well as making, selling, and serving wine. According to former Vancouver Wine & Spirit Education Trust educator Mark Shipway, there’s been substantial growth in the number of women working in the wine industry in British Columbia in recent years. In his experience, he found women typically achieved higher grades in many exams compared to their male colleagues.

Here, four women sommeliers working on the floor in some of Vancouver’s best restaurants dish about their wine lists and about the future of the industry.

Kelcie Jones: Wine Director and General Manager, Elephant

Vancouver-born Kelcie Jones began her career in hospitality during her university years. While studying English literature in Toronto, she worked at fine dining restaurant The Chase and was inspired by the resident sommeliers. “I thought I’d be a professor,” she shares. “Then I realized: ‘Wow, wine is kind of like literature.’ And it seemed more interesting.”

After receiving her master’s degree, Jones flew to Europe to spend an eye-opening six months working the wine harvest with a family in Provence. “There was a sense of everything being very holistic, and wine and food being deeply intertwined,” she says. “That all the food in the garden, and all the grapes and the animals, were part of one ecosystem. It felt like a better approach to the future of agriculture.”

Returning to Vancouver, Jones worked at Hawksworth and then Chambar. In December of 2021, she joined the opening team at the 18-seat Elephant on Powell Street.

Jones’s list at Elephant is built to partner with the restaurant’s vegetable-heavy menu—it’s front-loaded with white, sparkling, and rosé wines. It’s also a reflection of her personal philosophy, which focuses on wines from sustainable producers.

“I’m trying to see wine through a wider lens,” she shares. “Wines that are farmed regeneratively and by people who are holistic in their labour practices. For example, does the farm keep full-time vineyard labour, and do those people have healthcare benefits?”

Likewise, during COVID, she noticed that restaurants needed to change their practices in order to retain people. “Dishwashers or server assistants were seen as transient members of staff,” she says. “Now those people aren’t there unless you show them how they’re valued.”

Jones admits that being a sommelier has changed since the pandemic; she has to make snap decisions when buying wine based on availability. Due to staff shortages—something happening in hospitality city-wide—she also steps in to help with whatever needs to be done. “If there is one thing a sommelier didn’t have to do before, it was this idea of filling roles,” she says. “You have to be okay with that, because it’s the new nature of the business.”

Her pick: Buronfosse Crémant du Jura Indigene Brut Nature, France paired with pretty much anything on Elephant’s ever-changing menu.

Trina Moran: Wine Director, Glowbal Restaurant

Washing dishes at age 15 was New Westminster-born Trina Moran’s first hospitality job. She later spent seven years working for Milestones, which paid her way through the University of British Columbia—where she earned a degree in theatre and English literature. After graduating, Moran left Canada for three years, travelling the world while serving and tending bar. Of the places she visited, Morocco and Vietnam resonated most. “I loved the food stalls and markets in Morocco, where people crowded around tiny tables eating and having the best time,” she explains. “In Vietnam, the people were so welcoming and there was a sense of community. People coming together to eat is an integral part of those cultures.”

Moran joined Glowbal Restaurant in 2016 and became wine director in 2021. “For our list, it comes down to price and availability—we are a big restaurant, and I need a lot of wine,” she explains. “We are a contemporary West Coast surf and turf restaurant, so big-name Napa cabernets are a best-seller overall, as are chardonnay and pinot noir.”

Her take on the future of the sommelier is somber—partially due to observing customers at Liberty Wine Merchants, where she also works about once a month to keep up with what’s new. “In the wine store, the younger generation’s got their phones out; when I ask if they have questions, they answer no. They’re scanning for wines with the highest scores. I’m being replaced by an app,” she concedes. “I feel in the next 10 years there will be less of us, maybe only at fancy hotels and Michelin Star restaurants. We’re a dying breed.”

Her pick: Averill Creek Pinot Noir, Cowichan Valley, B.C. paired with Glowbal’s Vancouver Island organic salmon with black truffle vinaigrette, sautéed garlic kale, and Yukon gold puree.

Mya Brown: Wine Director, Botanist Restaurant at the Fairmont Pacific Rim

A decade ago, Winnipeg’s Mya Brown pivoted from a career in film and theatre into one in wine. She flew overseas to immerse herself in London’s thriving wine culture, where she cut her teeth at Michelin restaurants. “I meant to go for two years and stayed for five,” she says. London was also the perfect point from which to visit some of Europe’s most famous winemaking regions, which only made her fall more in love with the industry.

L’Abbatoir was her first job after moving to Vancouver in 2018; she joined Botanist in February of 2020, just before the pandemic shut the world down. “There was no normality—I have no idea what my role looked like before COVID,” she says. “Then we reopened in a tenuous August of 2020, and it was turmoil.”

Brown’s goal with her wine inventory is to highlight international terroir-driven wines from sustainable and organic producers—a list that aligns beautifully with Botanist’s Pacific Northwest cuisine.

But like for many of her peers in the industry, the current supply chain—getting hold of wines she normally stocks—is a big current challenge. “I think there’s going to be a significant positive impact for B.C. winemakers, because I’m not the only list that’s pivoted toward local wines,” she notes. “I now have a six-to-seven-month wait for a wine coming from New Zealand, but can I buy something comparable in B.C. that’ll arrive in a week at most. Plus, I like supporting the local economy, and the quality is improving exponentially every day.”

Like her peers, Brown acknowledges the shifting landscape of the sommelier. 

“When I started, we had a specific idea of what the role of a sommelier was—now it’s expanding. That role of one person whose primary responsibility is to sell wine is going to be quite specific to certain styles of restaurants,” she says. “I think there will be more somms consulting—where they’ll look after a dozen or so smaller restaurants by getting their lists set up, teams trained, and offer ongoing educational duties, without necessarily having a full-time sommelier on the floor.”

Her pick: Lousas Viña de Aldea Envinate Mencia, Galicia, Spain paired with Botanist’s dry-aged duck breast with roasted onion, tamale, salsify, and red mole.

Van Doren Chan: Wine Director, Le Crocodile

Van Doren Chan was nine years old when her family moved to Vancouver from Hong Kong. She began washing dishes in the family restaurant around the same age, and then moved on to serving. A trained chef and pastry chef with a handful of international wine certifications, Chan has pulled corks in some of the city’s finest dining establishments, including Hawksworth, C Restaurant, and Blue Water Cafe.

For a couple of years, Chan lived in the Okanagan and found work with Meyer Family Vineyards and Liquidity. She worked at Le Crocodile from 2012 to 2016 and only recently returned as wine director after chef-owner Michel Jacob personally asked her to come back.

It stands to reason that French wines have always dominated the list at Le Crocodile, which Chan maintains suit the menu perfectly; she’s particularly fond of the Alsatian bottles that she’s able to open for guests. Fortunately, she hasn’t struggled with the same supply issues as many other sommeliers. “We’re lucky: chef has a warehouse, so we buy and stock wine,” she says. “It’s a luxury.”

Chan thinks the sommelier will become a rarity, at least in the classic role of wine service only. “A manager-slash-somm, or a server-slash-somm, will be more common,” she predicts. “Plus, in the past year or so, people have become far more concerned with their lifestyle, and consider it more than in the past when just making money was important. Working late nights and long hours—you would plan your life around your job. Now it’s the other way around. It’s better for your mental health; it’s about balance.”

Her pick: Hugel Gentil, Alsace, France paired with Le Crocodile’s Alsatian-style onion tart.

While the role of the sommelier may be changing, women will undoubtedly continue to rise to the top—whatever the top looks like. And pours like.