Giusy Andreacchio

My biggest challenge was the leap from corporate employee to self-employed status. It was incredibly scary. I felt I had amassed many skills but hadn’t quite figured out how to put them all to use. My big problem at that time was how to bring together all my skills and capitalise on my contacts to create a small, profitable business. I must say that it was not easy but with painstaking patience, great courage, determination, and above all sacrifice, including financial, I managed to “get started.” The arrival of Covid really took me by surprise, but I continued to firmly believe in my project. Today, I’m happy to say I’ve managed to create a flourishing business where I can use all my skills and contacts, and above all, feel satisfied helping several Italian wineries find the right partners in various countries around the world and thus making a huge impact on their businesses.

Throughout my twenty-year career in wine, I’ve always been struck by how women, when working together, can have a strong influence on the wine world. In the past, for example, I have teamed up with women working in wineries to promote little-known grape varieties from Italy in the UK and ensure important male buyers would be interested and engaged in purchasing these wines. We managed to make things happen because unity is strength! Another example of how women are supported by the trade today concerns the many cases of women I have met, who started new jobs while undergoing major changes in their lives (purchasing homes, having a family, or experiencing a spouse’s health issues), and I was very impressed by how much they were supported by their employers. This is crucial for sustaining and developing careers that might otherwise be in danger of being lost.

There are several things I find exciting in the wine world right now. Firstly, the presence of young, highly knowledgeable people, and in the case of Italian sommeliers and industry professionals, the potential for some of them to create excellent careers in the wine industry. In the past, when I started out, there weren’t so many young Italian people in the industry because the wine world was dominated by a few people known to the industry and these were mostly men. Secondly, I find it exciting that the world of wine is evolving so rapidly, with new wine-producing countries emerging alongside new trends and new wine categories. This is very stimulating, and it’s easy to understand why more young people are drawn to the world of wine and love to immerse themselves in it. There’s so much to learn every day, so many tastings to go to, so many events to take part in and so many producers to know about, that there’s practically no time to be bored or uninterested.

Maria Virginia Fontò. Virginia is a young sommelier in charge of the wine list at Galvin La Chapelle, a Michelin Star restaurant in London. She became head sommelier in March 2024, and she is doing an amazing job leading her to win many recognitions. I truly admire Virginia for her extensive knowledge of the world of wines, for example check out her contribution about Alsatian wines here but above all for her professionalism, composure and seriousness in carrying out her work, which is not always something to be taken for granted. I love her determination: she took her first steps in the wine world as a commis sommelier and combining hard work with intense study, she achieved incredible success. Virginia is a prime example of how a young wine enthusiast managed to carve out a career for herself, passionately immersing herself in the world of Michelin-starred restaurants with excellent results.