Wine Girl

by Victoria James

[Heather]

I've always wanted to learn about wine.  I think the history of different vineyards and wines is fascinating.  That's why I was interested in listening to Wine Girl.  What does it take to be an expert on wine, especially at a young age?

However, this book is more of a look at the sexism inherent in the restaurant and wine business than a primer on wines.  There is a lot of trauma discussed here.  There are descriptions of sexual harassment by patrons, forced sexual relationships by bosses and coworkers, and rapes by patrons.  She accepted these things as the price you need to pay to work in the industry.  By the end of the book, it was nice to see that she was using her new power as a restaurant owner to teach others that it doesn't have to be that way. 

Even the nonviolent events show severe sexism in the world of high end fine dining.  There were restaurants where she was never allowed to set foot in the kitchen because the cooks were all male and didn't want women in there.  (Yet these same people would probably consider cooking at home to be women's work.)  There were restaurants where only men were hired as servers.  She was dismissed at sommelier competitions because women don't compete.  They certainly don't win.

There is a lot of information about her childhood here too.  I hate the inclusion of childhood details in memoirs.  I think authors tend to dwell too much on their formative years and it gets boring.  This story has echoes of Educated in the presentation of a dysfunctional childhood.  It should be noted that the author's older sister, who doesn't feature much in the book, has come out strongly against the book saying that her description of her childhood is not factual. 

 This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story