Wine Girl

Starred review from October 14, 2019
In this gritty, eloquent memoir, James, who became the country’s youngest sommelier at 21, talks about overcoming sexual assault and sexism as she built a career in the restaurant business. The book, which spans James’s life from age seven to 28, opens with an overview of her unstable childhood, which included an absent mother and alcoholic father. James worked in greasy diners as a teenager and painfully describes being raped by a customer after a shift. She briefly turned to drugs after the attack, then got clean and moved to New York, where she landed a bartending job at an Italian restaurant. Her first sommelier job was at Michelin-starred Aureole, where she learned how to make wine recommendations and how to scan a customer’s appearance to determine how much money they might spend. Often dismissed by customers who disliked taking advice from a woman, she relentlessly studied wine and won awards, among them the prestigious Sud de France Sommelier Challenge. James grippingly discusses working at several high-end restaurants and wading through ugly swamps of unwanted advances and crude comments before finding a happy home at Michelin-starred Cote, where she is the beverage director. This is a captivating story of resilience from a sommelier who hustled hard to conquer her profession.

February 1, 2020

James became the youngest sommelier at a U.S. Michelin-starred restaurant at the age of 21. How she got there is the focus of this warm and enjoyable memoir. Growing up, James knew little about food and even less about wine. She began her hospitality career waitressing at a diner when she was just 13. Work was not only a way to earn cash, but also a way to escape her dysfunctional family, if only for a few hours at a time. Bartending at a small Italian restaurant in New York exposed her to wine; in order to learn more, she went to an industry wine tasting class and eventually found her new career. The requirements for a good sommelier are steep: a strong palate, masses of memorization, and serious customer service skills. James kept pursuing the career, despite having her youth and gender used against her; she was frequently dismissed and harassed. VERDICT While informative about what it takes to become a sommelier, the focus of this moving memoir is more on James's personal journey. A satisfying read overall.--Devon Thomas, Chelsea, MI

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2019
A memoir from the youngest certified sommelier in the male-dominated wine industry. After her passionate response to the final question of the competition, James (Drink Pink: A Celebration of Rosé, 2017) won the Sud de France Sommelier Challenge in 2013, becoming the first American female sommelier to take home the title. Soon after, at the age of 21, she became the youngest certified sommelier. Getting to that point was not an easy task. Along the way, she endured a tumultuous upbringing due to an absent mother and an alcoholic father as well as verbal and sexual abuse from customers. Growing up, James felt "that one's social class did not define one's character" and had the notion that she could "bring people together through wine" as a sommelier. Becoming a certified sommelier should have been a life-changing event, but she soon discovered it was not. Despite her successes, she was continually belittled for her age and faced sexism and abuse of power from employers and clients. After years of humiliation in the high-end restaurant world, where men hold the majority of the power, James became disillusioned and escaped to the vineyards of France, seeking authenticity. There, she also discovered a true sense of purpose. On her return to the States, with the support of her family, she felt "empowered to make a change." She established a zero-tolerance policy at the restaurant she now co-owns, and, with a vision for "diversifying the wine world," she created Wine Empowered, a nonprofit organization that offers tuition-free education for minorities and women in the hospitality industry. She also finished her book, which shares this journey and dispels many of the myths associated with the wine industry. Many of the details James shares about her experiences are disturbing and graphic in nature; however, her story also exudes warmth as she breezily weaves in her knowledge and passion for wine and shares the generous love she has for her siblings, friends, and husband. An inspiring, captivating story of resilience.

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January 1, 2020
James was just 21 when she became the youngest sommelier in the U.S. But her journey to achieving the wine industry's highest accolade was filled with trials and tribulations that ultimately influenced her to become the woman she is today. For fans of Tara Westover's Educated (2017), James' first memoir is a #metoo story for the fine-dining industry, full of bosses who abused their roles and patrons with a clear lack of boundaries. She describes taking her first diner job at 13 to escape her strict father and how this evolved into bartending positions and eventually work in the fine-dining scene. James also takes us through her abusive and traumatic childhood and reflects on how those experiences strengthened her resolve to share her love of wine and hospitality with people. Inspiring, and a true testament to the author's strength, Wine Girl is like a good meal paired with the finest wine: meant to be savored in all its many subtle layers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Author Victoria James, the youngest sommelier in the U.S., comes across as an earnest and persuasive narrator who is authoritative without being pretentious. Her pleasant voice and narrative style propel her audiobook forward. She does struggle with the "nt" sounds in words like "important" and in contractions. But hers is a story that needs telling. She provides background on her dysfunctional family and makes a serious indictment of male chauvinism and abuse in the fine dining world. Mainly, her audiobook tells the inside story of her remarkable rise to prominence in New York's high-end eateries. Despite exploitation--from insults to groping to rape--she perseveres and prevails. James is a prodigy: She was a sommelier at 21 and, while still in her twenties, is the beverage director at an award-winning New York restaurant. A.D.M. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine