alicefeiring

Alice Feiring has known Pascaline Lepeltier “for almost 20 years (when she was 27, she was opening the now-defunct Rouge Tomate and crashing on my sofa; together, she wrote the introduction to my book, the ‘Dirty Guide to Wine’), so I was hardly an impartial audience member.” But she was not alone in her shock last week when Lepeltier, who is also the wine director at the Tribeca restaurant Chambers, came in second place at this year’s World’s Best Sommelier event. It was not Lepeltier’s first attempt — or her first disappointment. Sommelier competitions are solidly in the realm of the arcane, and they are as much about wine knowledge as they are wine service. In one early attempt to secure the title of top sommelier of France, Lepeltier was the only woman. One task at a 2010 contest was to serve a magnum of Champagne, a big-boy bottle that Lepeltier poured perfectly nestled into her elbow, while the male competitors used two hands. While she passed that test but did not win the top award, she did collect irksome feedback from one of the judges: “She was too enthusiastic,” he told her. “Perhaps, being a sommelier wasn’t her thing,” the suggestions continued. “If she were to insist on pursuing this career, she should wear ‘un petit talon’ (a little heel) and some makeup.” “I asked her a while ago why she’d keep subjecting herself to a formal competition that has little to do with the pleasure of wine and — with its emphasis on three-star dining and blind tasting — reinforces the belief that wine is for the elite and not something to be enjoyed by everyone,” writes Feiring. “I want to do it for women,” Lepeltier said. Read more about Lepeltier’s fight to rewrite the rules of the wine world: grubstreet.visitlink.me/A25k…