Master Sommelier Andrea Robinson Left Wall Street For Wine Country

In Bustle’s Quick Question, we ask women leaders all about career advice, from the best guidance they’ve ever gotten to what they’re still figuring out. Here, Andrea Robinson, master sommelier for Delta, shares her daily routine, navigating a male-dominated field, and her unlikely path from Wall Street to wine country.

If you’ve enjoyed a glass of wine on a Delta flight in the past two decades, you can thank Andrea Robinson. The master sommelier has worked with the airline since 2007 to stock beverage carts, including with Delta One’s new wine program, which will begin pouring onboard Oct. 1.

Approximately 1,600 different wines were in the running for the new program, which Robinson whittled down to 13 selections with help from some of the airline’s most devoted customers; she led them through blind tastings this spring. Six of the 11 featured wineries are based in the United States’ own Napa Valley, where Robinson resides. These “somm-selected; customer-approved” bottles will be available to all passengers on long-haul Delta One flights.

Robinson is one of only 25 women today with the master sommelier title, which she achieved in 1997. That very same year, she became the first woman ever named “Best Sommelier in the United States” by the Sommelier Society of America. She won three consecutive James Beard Awards for her work from 2002 to 2004. And while her accolades speak for themselves, the world of wine wasn’t always in her sights.

In college at the Southern Methodist University in Texas, Robinson studied finance and economics, and she planned to continue down that career path. Instead, a wine tasting class sparked her passion. Still, it wasn’t until she was recruited to an investment firm in New York City after graduation that she considered a career pivot.

“The city is great for finance, but it’s also great for wine,” she says.

While Robinson worked on Wall Street, she also volunteered to pour glasses at the International Wine Center in exchange for studying free of charge. After two years doing both, she felt as though she reached a fork in the road — she could either go on to business school or chase her dreams. She chose the latter, heading to Europe to visit as many wine regions as possible.

Now, in her role at Delta, Robinson brings her expertise to an environment that could be a challenge for a less-practiced sommelier. Flight introduces even more factors into the intricate art of wine curation. On a plane, altitude and cabin pressure causes aromatics in the drink to diffuse faster, while the dry cabin air diminishes the senses of taste and smell, so the experience of sipping on your favorite varietal can be vastly different on the ground versus at 30,000 feet. Robinson compensates for this with bottles that are “punchy, complete, and abundant in aromatics and flavors.”

Below, Robinson chats professional pivots, managing work stress, and what she wishes more people understood about the wine industry.

What’s your advice to anyone considering a career change?

Follow that feeling and get as many informational interviews or noncommitted experiences as possible. Doing that lets you dip a toe in and meet people who can help you, and you can start to see what different careers look like.

You’re currently one of only 25 women master sommeliers, and when you started out, there were only 18. What’s it like working in a male-dominated field?

It’s really evolved over the course of my career. When I became the buyer at Windows on the World [a restaurant at the original World Trade Center] early in my career, I would have a lot of old-school salespeople who were a little taken aback seeing me, a different profile from what they were used to.

Now, although it's still a small percentage, there’s so many incredibly accomplished women in this career path.

What’s a part of your routine you always stick to?

I’m strict about reading my daily newsfeed about what's going on in the wine industry. It’s always harvest season somewhere, either in the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere. That’s important because, especially in the airline space, we have a lot of global wine selections.

How do you cope with work-related stress?

I always keep in mind what my mother always said to me: “Don’t let little things cheat you of the two things that you can’t get back: quality time and peace of mind.”

What’s something you wish more people knew about your field?

There's still a strong perception that wine has to be expensive to be good, and that is just not true. Get comfortable with a wine shop that you can trust to be respectful of your budget. They’ll take that “Hey, I want to spend eight bucks” as a positive challenge and a way to rock your world.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.