PORTLAND WINE WEEK 2024 FEATURE: SOMMELIER Jessica Williams of Wayside Tavern
Sponsored by Buoy Local.
Introducing the Portland Wine Week Sommelier Showcase, brought to you by Buoy Local. Portland, Maine, may be a small city, but it has an outsized reputation for wine and food thanks to the talented culinary stars behind its mouth-watering menus. When it comes to wine, Portland is dominated by women wine professionals who work hard to bring you the best bottles from across the globe. This series spotlights 10 women Sommeliers pouring phenomenal wine all Portland Wine Week-long!
Jessica’S Portland Wine Week Events:
Jess welcomed us into Wayside on a bright, sunny day in May and said that she wanted to talk about terroir. Well, technically she said she’d answer whatever questions we had, but she had recently returned from a trip to Napa Valley and was brimming with viticultural inspiration. As good interviewers, we had to start with the basics, how she got her start in wine and how she ended up here; in Portland, Maine’s Wayside Tavern as a team lead and wine trainer.
A lifetime learner, Jess’s first experience with wine was pretty relatable. At a holiday family dinner, her dad who was studying to become a sommelier gave her and her brother a thimbleful of wine in port glasses. They were instructed to sniff, swirl, sip, take a forkful of food, sip again, then describe what they tasted. She didn’t quite get the point of the exercise as a teenager, but looking back now? “I remember it to a tee. It was cru Beaujolais… [When I was 14] it just wasn't that interesting! But… I also wanted another sip! I was like, ‘Oh, I do want to try again.’ I remember it tasting funky and fruity. Which is classic Cru Beaujolais.”
A move from her home state of Florida to South Carolina plopped her in a burgeoning food scene right in the heart of the farm-to-table movement. A major, collective endeavor to restructure the way restaurants thought about sourcing food. “Everybody wanted to know where food was coming from, what farm, who grew it, who made it.” This movement spread like wildfire throughout the food and beverage industry, changing the supply chain in every business from coffee shops to wine bars.
The road to becoming a wine professional wasn’t always smooth sailing for Jess. Her first mentor in wine was a chef at an old-school, fast-paced Italian restaurant where the menu changed twice a day and the environment was fiercely competitive. She describes peering into staff trainings with longing, since she was only a host at the time she wasn’t allowed to participate in the educational opportunities. She recalls thinking “That's so cool. How does he know what he's talking about? How does he know these places and these grapes and these people? And I really wanted to do that. And I asked him after mustering up a lot of courage. I just turned 21. And I finally said, ‘can I learn about wine?’ And he was like… NO!” Despite the initial gatekeeping, this chef became one of her most influential wine mentors, the first (except for her father) in a line of wine professionals working in restaurants that would expand her repertoire over the next several years.
Which brings us to, terroir, her favorite subject. Jess began to explore the landscape (no pun intended) beyond selling wine in a restaurant under Bertrand Gilli, a hilarious Frenchman working at a classic Italian restaurant in Columbia with a massive wine list. Gilli took a more nuanced approach to wine, teaching Jess about origin, the fundamentals of wine regions down to the subtleties between villages and various soil types. Shortly thereafter, the pivotal job of her career became available (well technically, she sweet-talked the restaurant owner with infectious charm and fervor to hire her). This was the legendary, two-time James Beard nominee Lula Drake Wine Parlour. Taking an unprecedented, unconventional approach to the wine bar model, they opened up with a 50-wines-by-the-glass list, all natural, all biodynamic, in a town that exclusively drank conventional wines. “I didn't even realize at the time how much we were talking about the ethics of farming and what it means to practice biodynamic, and why practicing biodynamic is sometimes better than certified biodynamic, and why organics matters and why the push for sustainability is so important! Not just for grapes, and not just for the future of our wine culture, but for the planet and the people that work on vineyards. It was just so incredible what we were trying to do, and the owner was like, ‘If no one comes here and wants to drink the wine, I'll close, we're not going to change what we're doing to suit the palate of somebody else.’” The initial reception was challenging as many guests did not embrace the Lula way, but the ones who did became lifelong customers – a phenomenon that acted as an important introduction for the style of hospitality she would forever be drawn to.
This level of wine education was revolutionary to her, and sparked a lifelong journey of exploration. She articulated this passion with her customary candor by saying, “I needed dirt in my hands. And I needed to drink a glass of wine while I discovered it and talked about it.” After a six-and-a-half year tenure at Lula Drake, she decided to move on to further her education. The move to Portland brought pivotal moments in her career such as being responsible for more managerial responsibilities like staff training and wine sales for the first time, and growing as a businesswoman who understood the importance of revenue.
She settled at Wayside Tavern where her various passions could align. She still does her favorite parts of the job; training staff on the current and new additions to the wine list and connecting with guests over the wine and food menu – but her role at Wayside also allows her the flexibility to explore other passions, such as the life changing trip to Napa Valley she won by scholarship through the Court of Sommeliers and continuing her studying for WSET certification.
Ultimately, her position at Wayside embodies the essence of prioritizing hospitality above all else. Relentless pursuit of knowledge and a commitment to fostering genuine connections with both colleagues and customers are paramount. Her experience in the Portland sommelier scene underscores the profound impact of shared values in creating a successful and rewarding career in the industry. “People here are so curious to try so many different varietals. They're not thrown off at all when you introduce a grape they've never heard of, in fact, they're far more intrigued. I think there's so many professionals who bring such a different take on wine to Portland.”
Visit her at Wayside Tavern, open Thursday through Tuesday 4 PM - 9 PM. Also, Jess will be competing amongst the other fantastic sommeliers of Portland, Maine in the Grand Opening Women In Wine Dinner: Who Paired It Better? Sponsored by Bangor Savings!
