{ SOMMjournal.com } 99
(Meridith May, Publisher and Editorial
Director of The SOMM Journal, came in
at #15.)
I know that when many of the women
on this list—including me—began their ca-
reers, very few women had forged a path
before them, meaning female mentors
were in short supply. In an interview last
year for Prestige magazine, Master of Wine
and prominent wine critic Lisa Perrotti-
Brown, who serves as the Editor-in-Chief
of The Wine Advocate, revealed that during
her 27 years in the wine industry—hav
-
ing worked for nine companies in four
countries in more than seven fields from
marketing to purchasing to publishing—
she's never once worked for a woman.
Of course, in every aspect of advance
-
ment, remuneration, recognition, and sup-
port, women of color have it particularly
hard. Not only are they not adequately
represented, but when they do end up oc-
cupying high-level positions, they're often
treated with shocking dismissiveness.
By way of example, Andréa McBride,
a Black woman who owns the company
McBride Sisters Wines with her sister Rob
-
in, recently told me this story after they
both traveled to Cincinnati for a business
meeting. "The
night before, we went to a
Leslie Sbrocco Lindsey Wallingford Maia Parish
"In this one
short year
when women
have seemingly
achieved so
much, we have
simultaneously
accomplished
SO VERY LITTLE."
—Karen MacNeil
