My latest article for Sommelier Journal!

http://www.sommelierjournal.com/articles/article.aspx?year=2008&month=11&articlenum=30

SOMMELIER SPOTLIGHT Eno at the InterContinental, Chicago Julianne Will Julianne Will passed the introductory level of the Court of Master Sommeliers last summer. She left a career in marketing and publishing this spring to pursue freelance writing full time, covering food, wine, fitness, travel, and other subjects. She has also authored or co-authored four best-selling Catholic children’s books. She lives in Chicago and can be reached through her website, www.julianne
Eno’s four women sommeliers—young, dynamic, and enthusiastic—could easily pass for a group of college co-eds.
But spend five minutes with any of them, and each exhibits a level of knowledge and professionalism far above what someone could pick up from a weekend waitressing job. “That’s one thing that I think we deal with on a daily basis,” says Jennifer Bingham, wine director at Eno. “A lot of people ask us if we’re in school.” But the four are pleased to set the record straight. “Everyone who works here,” Bingham says, “wants wine to be their career.”
Eno, located in the InterContinental on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, is the first in a series of wine bars, now expanding across the country, that specialize in cheese and chocolate. The female sommeliers here divide up the duties: Bingham is the wine director, along with Scott Harney; Mary Krol is wine manager/event planner; Shara Bauer is wine manager/chocolate buyer; and Kristin Turner is wine manager/cheese buyer. Each has both the work experience and formal education to inform her role.
Bingham, 26 and an Ohio native, earned her bachelor’s degree at Ohio Wesleyan University, studying sociology and business. During a semester abroad in Australia, she toured the Hunter, Yarra, and Barossa valleys, where her interest in wine was piqued. When she got home, she started working part-time at a wine shop. After college, Bingham moved west, taking a job in 2004 at high-end retailer Knightsbridge Wine Shoppe, in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook. Soon after, she was hired as wine buyer for the boutique Que Syrah Fine Wines in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. She left for Eno to gain experience on the service side, joining the restaurant shortly after it opened in December 2006.
Along the way, she studied. Bingham passed Wine Fundamentals I and II through the International Sommelier Guild in spring 2006, and she passed the Court of Master Sommeliers’ Certified Sommelier exam in April 2007. She took a break from further classes to plan for her September 2008 wedding in northern Michigan.
Krol, 33, grew up in Rolling Meadows, a northwest suburb of Chicago. She attended Harper College part-time for three years, studying English and creative writing. Her interest in wine actually did begin with a waitressing job in college, at Gino’s East Pizza, then part of the Lettuce Entertain You group. Her pay and benefits were so good that Krol stayed with the restaurant group when she moved to the city in 1998, transferring to Shaw’s Crab House.
She befriended the wine steward and started taking classes, including a certification in wine fundamentals through Allied Domecq. In 2002, she signed up for a winemaking apprenticeship at Pacific Star Winery in Fort Bragg, Calif. Krol completed Wine Fundamentals I and II and the six-month, intensive Sommelier Diploma Course through the International Sommelier Guild; she is currently preparing for her two-day final exam. At Shaw’s, she was eventually asked to assist with the wine program, which she did until moving to Eno in 2007.
Bauer, 31, grew up in the Chicago restaurant business. Her grandfather owned a restaurant for 40 years; her dad, a longtime restaurant general manager, is now a headhunter in the industry; and her mother is a corporate trainer for Weber Grill Restaurants. From high school on, Bauer worked in fine dining, beginning as a server and later tending bar.
She studied psychology and English at the University of Iowa, but after meeting sommelier Belinda Chang, then with Chicago’s Cenitare restaurants and now the wine director for The Modern in New York, Bauer realized that wine could be both a passion and a career—and not just for men. She passed Wine Fundamentals I and II in the winter of 2007, and joined Eno that summer. In April 2008, she became a Certified Sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers; now, she’s decided to pursue Master Sommelier status.
A talented baker with a sweet tooth, Bauer crafts her chocolate list with an informed palate. At the moment, she’s excited about pairing a white-chocolate-strawberry truffle with the M. Lawrence Brut Rosé Cuvée Eno, a sparkling wine from Michigan.
Turner, 29, moved to Chicago from Indiana to attend Loyola University, double-majoring in cognitive psychology and vocal performance with a minor in neuroscience. She, too, worked her way through college with restaurant jobs, serving at The Club at Chicago Symphony Center, the Garden Restaurant at the Art Institute of Chicago, and Sam’s Wines and Spirits. On those jobs, she discovered her love for pairing food and wine.
Turner stayed at Sam’s for two years after graduation, then started at Eno in December 2006. She has passed Wine Fundamentals I and II; after her November wedding, she plans to concentrate on becoming certified through the Court of Master Sommeliers and to pursue Wine & Spirit Education Trust studies.
Turner also loves to cook; her cheese expertise is fueled by her personal interest in food. Each woman has her own area of expertise in wine as well. With 700 wines listed at any time and new ones always coming in, Krol says, if there’s a wine on the list that a sommelier is unsure about, “there’s someone you can always turn to.” The four also meet once a month for training and discussion. “We’ll each be assigned anywhere from four to six wines,” Turner says, “and we do all the research we possibly can and present it to each other. Which really helps, because then we all see the labels of the wines that we actually do carry, so in case we’re not here to meet with the wine reps, we can still get a good handle on it.”
All four sommeliers are on the floor during service hours, so they have to conduct most of their research into new wines, cheeses, and chocolates—not to mention tasting and ordering—on their own time. Wine buying for Bingham is “even more challenging,” says Bauer, “because we do try to find stuff that you can’t find anywhere else. We want stuff that we have to tell people about.”
Bauer uses five chocolatiers, primarily from the Midwest, for her handmade and hand-dipped sweets, from all-natural, Fair Trade ingredients. Even the gift boxes are biodegradable. “We have to explain why this costs $5,” she says with a laugh, holding a truffle.
“We kind of moved away from the big European names to small, Midwestern, artisan cheeses and chocolates,” says Turner. “We buy direct from the cheese farm whenever we can. Tourists on Michigan Avenue really like that.” She’s been known to get up early after a late shift just to be the first to meet a particular cheese provider at the Green City Farmer’s Market in Lincoln Park. She also surfs the Internet early in the morning, she says, “finding those super-small cheese farms that no one else has on their lists. It’s definitely a lifestyle.”
Although Eno prides itself on seeking out exclusive products, it tries to make them as accessible as possible. “We have so many bottles that are priced so reasonably that people who wouldn’t normally take the risk of getting a bottle, can,” says Krol. “That’s what we try to do—bring it on a level that’s super-casual. It doesn’t need to be intimidating. We’re just very laid-back.”
“For someone who knows nothing about wine, cheese, or chocolate,” Turner adds, “they can come in and have all these experiences and be educated on all the products.” Those experiences include parties ranging from classroom-style tastings to lavish cocktail hours with stations. “We can be as in-depth as they want,” Krol says. “They love that there are all sommeliers there, and they can really impress their friends.”
That all four sommeliers are female still surprises and impresses guests, who often assume the women won’t know what they’re talking about. But that’s starting to change. “It’s an up-and-coming career choice for women,” says Bingham. “When we go to trade tastings, we are always the minority, for sure.” But she and the others are noticing more and more women in their classes. In fact, the number of women who applied for their Eno positions was noticeably greater than in the past, according to Harney.
Kathleen Lewis, executive director of the Court of Master Sommeliers for the past 11 years, has also observed the trend. Though there are just 14 women among the 96 current Master Sommeliers in the American chapter, the ratio of women to men has been increasing. And the growth is even greater at the Certified and Advanced levels, Lewis says, which will eventually be reflected in the Master ranks.
The four sommeliers at Eno find strength in numbers. “We’re always teaching each other,” Krol says. “It’s nice that we’ll all be able to open a bottle and talk about it. You’re working with people who all have the same passion for it.” They clearly have a lot of fun, too. Almost like a group of college co-eds.
Eno InterContinental Chicago 505 N. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60611 (312) 321-8738 www.enowinerooms.com
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