Wall Street to Wine Expert
By Bill Spring
At first glance, master sommelier Andrea Immer's rise to the top of the wine world seems to have been as swift and effortless as a bubble floating to the top of a glass of fine champagne. But a closer look reveals feistiness and determination over fizz. Immer's relied on knowledge, hard work, and an unwavering dedication to get where she is today.
Immer is currently one of only eleven women in the world to hold the title of master sommelier, out of a total group of 113. In 1997 the Sommelier Society of America chose her as Best Sommelier in the United States.
She's also a wine writer, educator, and a television personality whose weekly series "Simply Wine with Andrea Immer" recently premiered on cable's Fine Living Network.
But Immer's introduction to wine, at age 5, was a bit of a comic disaster.
"Some friends of ours had some Concord grapes growing in their yard," she remembers. "My dad got a big old stone crock. We squashed the grapes, added yeast, and it promptly bubbled out all over the laundry room floor. It tasted really rank."
By her teenage years, Immer's love of cooking led her to an appreciation for wine. "I was a foodie," she says, "and read recipe books like they were novels. I started to realize that there was a whole wine culture attached to food."
But she studied economics and finance in the mid-1980s at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
"It became really attractive to take a job on Wall Street, and see if I could make a go of it in The Big Apple."
Determined to be self-reliant, Immer decided to take a class in auto repair. When she found the course full, she registered for wine-tasting instead, and it reawakened her interest in the subject. "It just really captivated my imagination," she says.
When Immer graduated from SMU in 1988, wine was still just a hobby, so she took a job as a financial analyst with the investment firm of Morgan Stanley in New York.
But she found aspects of the financial world to be predictable, and didn't like it that she could see every step of her career laid out before her. "I didn't want the mystery to be erased," she explains. "I wanted some excitement."
At the same time, Immer was volunteering at the International Wine Center on nights and weekends, pouring wine and cleaning spittoons to earn free classes. Realizing that she got more pleasure and satisfaction from learning about wine than she did from her job, Immer faced a decision. "I asked myself 'do I stay with finance, or do I go on and try to make a career in what I love?'"
In late 1989, she left Morgan Stanley and threw herself into the world of wine.
To jump start her wine education, Immer traveled to Europe in 1990, journeying solo through the legendary wine producing regions of France, Spain, Italy and Germany for six months. "Before I left, I sent postcards and letters to every great winery I could find, letting them know when I'd be in the region."
After immersing herself in the local languages, Immer was able to learn from the masters, often trading physical labor for insight and information.
"I landed in Bordeaux in time for the harvest, and helped pick grapes for one of the great vintages of the last century, 1990."
Back in New York with a greatly expanded knowledge of wine, Immer went to work at the wine school at Windows on the World, the internationally famous restaurant that once sat atop the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
"It was probably the best place in the world to apprentice for a wine career," she says.
Over the past decade, Immer's career has moved steadily upward. She's served as the Corporate Director of Beverage Programs for Starwood Hotels and Resorts, written magazine columns and books, launched a website, and made television appearances.
She is Dean of Wine Studies at the French Culinary Institute, where she teaches two courses.
Her new show has a relaxed and irreverent approach, demystifying the wine world, with Immer traveling the world to visit winemakers, sommeliers, and people who simply love a good bottle of wine.
In addition to taking viewers on various wine-related journeys, the show focuses on wine/food pairings and stresses that enjoyable wine doesn't have to be expensive. It's a belief Immer calls "yum for cheap," and it's central to her mission to show Americans that wine is something to enjoy every day.
Despite the hard work, Immer still considers wine her passion. "I'm lucky to be able to make a career in something I love, and I can't take it too seriously, because it's just wine," she says. "It's a pleasure point, not a pressure point."
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