Leading sommelier Nina Jensen bids farewell to the wine world
Champion sommelier Nina Jensen recently announced her departure from the sommelier world – via Instagram – at the age of just 31, penning an eloquent but firm message about her experiences as a woman working in wine and taking part in wine competitions. We spoke to Nina to bring you an exclusive insight into what she’s doing next, and to address some of the points raised in her post; far from decrying the industry as a whole, Nina hopes to encourage transparency, healthy debate and, ultimately, progress for her beloved profession.
Nina Jensen has twice been named Best Sommelier in Denmark (2017, 2019) and came agonisingly close to becoming both the youngest and first female winner of Best Sommelier of the World, by placing second in 2019 and 2023. In her first year of competing alone, the Dane won the Nordic Sommelier Championship and the European Young Sommelier Cup.
Last year, Nina won the Grand Prix – our highest award – at the Star Wine List of the Year International Final for her work as Wine Director at Copenhagen’s two-Michelin-starred Alchemist (regularly named as one of the best restaurants in the world), and now sits on the jury panel for this season’s competitions.
Successes like these have made Nina a force in the sommelier world and, unsurprisingly, a role model for many women seeking to break into, or simply ascend the ranks of the industry. Messages come through on Instagram from across the globe, often from women expressing the sense of hope that Nina’s wins have given them. “What I was surprised about in ‘19 was how many women came and said it was important to them that I had been there, really, because of representation,” she tells us. “I was feeling like, ‘whoa, that's dramatic,’ right? And then I was feeling very shy, almost a little bit embarrassed about it, because why should I be in a position to provide hope? I just read a lot and now I'm here!”
Indeed, it is her awareness of this public persona that has given her the greatest consternation in announcing her departure from wine, for fear that it could discourage other women from forging a path in it – a possibility that Nina finds “heartbreaking.”
“It has definitely been my biggest hesitation in wanting to share even that I had decided to pursue something else,” she says. “Because I really feel like in some way that it would be letting somebody down, because I really believe that you can have success as a woman now in our industry. Sure, you would have to overcome certain barriers, in some places far more than in others, but I really would like to be a part of the representation because I think that is where biases can be changed – it’s one of the only truly effective tools we have.”
That said, Nina does have some “reflections” from her time in the industry that she is keen to share. And so, when she made her announcement on Instagram, her departure was only mentioned in the tenth of 10 slides; the others relayed her experiences as a woman competing in this male-dominated sphere.
“I never truly understood, nor accepted that there should be any difference between genders in our wine world,” her post states. “Perhaps naively, I had therefore never subscribed to the notion, and only encountered it occasionally in a sort of wonder over remarks made by guests here and there. In becoming more visible in competitions and exposing myself to judgement, my perception changed.”
If I ever go to war, I'd like to have Nina Jensen next to me (Krister Bengtsson)
The world of sommelier competitions
Nina caught most people’s attention at the ASI ‘Worlds’ in 2019. Star Wine List’s Founder and Publisher, Krister Bengtsson was in the audience in Antwerp, Belgium, when Nina was whittled down to the final three alongside eventual winner Marc Almert and Raimonds Tomsons (who would go on to win at the next competition, in 2023).
During her service section, the battery in Nina’s headset failed, leaving her without a microphone. The technician sent on to the stage with a hand-held mic by way of a solution hit the tray of glasses in Nina’s hand, which crashed to the floor. “It was a huge disaster in the moment,” says Bengtsson. “And I remember Arvid Rosengren [chair of the competition] saying, ‘Ok, stop this. Start over.’ Nina went off-stage and we were all like, ‘What the hell just happened?’ And then she came back and did it perfectly. And I remember thinking, ‘Ok, if I ever go to war, I'd like to have Nina Jensen next to me’ because those are nerves of steel to come back like that.”
Nina’s account of the commotion behind the scenes only adds to the sense of chaos, with a sound technician backstage arguing that Nina should simply hold a microphone in her hand for the rest of the performance – not recognising the physical impracticality of a contestant wielding a mic whilst opening and serving bottles of wine, carrying glasses, and so on.
Ultimately, it made little difference. “It was wild,” Nina reflects on the moment. “You are in competition mode. So there is a brief moment where you think that this is a part of the competition! So you just continue. And in the instant where it happened, I went on like, ‘Ok, I can still do this because I know I have six minutes for it, and I know I can do it in five. So you can still manage to go back, get these glasses, get them on the table, get the wine served and maybe you can get to clean up a little.’ That was my line of thought.
“For me, I think it was good that it happened in ‘19 and not at any other point because I was already so excited just to be there. My goal going into that competition was semi-finals, and then to be in the final was unbelievable. So I had already achieved far more than what I dared to dream of.”
By the time Nina competed in the ASI World’s Best Sommelier 2023, in Paris, she already knew that it would be her last international competition and gave herself licence fully to enjoy it. Competing had been her life since she was 22 – her formative adult years – but curiosity had crept in: “I really had a deep desire now to connect to all the other interests that I have because I am really kind of loving the world. I know it sounds so weird to say, but I feel there's so many fields that just amaze me, and I wanted a little bit more freedom to be able to appreciate those other fields.
“And at the same time, I only really like doing something if I do it 100%. So it meant, if I wanted one thing, I needed to exclude the other.”
A rising star
This ‘all or nothing’ mentality, combined with her composure under pressure, has enabled Nina to excel in competitions – and in the sommelier trade. Hours of reading and studying are required alongside those spent serving customers on the restaurant floor and, of course, the time it takes to put wine lists together.
Nina’s first exposure to wine came during a four-year apprenticeship at Restaurant Le Sommelier. She completed a course with the Scandinavian Wine Academy, Vinkällan, at the same time as finishing her waitering qualification. Next came Restaurant Anarki, and then her first Head Sommelier position and introduction to the Michelin world at Kong Hans Kælder, before she moved on to Restaurant Lyst. In 2021, she joined the two-star Alchemist, also teaching for Danish Sommelier Training and editing the Danish Sommelier Association’s in-house magazine, before leaving hospitality last summer.
Rather than following the Court of Master Sommeliers route, Nina’s peers were preoccupied with the competition circuit. It was her colleague, sommelier Christian Thorsholt Jacobsen who first suspected that Nina’s disposition might suit it too. “He caught very quickly that I was willing to put in a lot of time in wine and like to study. So he said, ‘Hey, we have this youth competition coming up (that was back in 2015). How about you give it a go?’ And I did, and I placed third.”
In a twist of fate, this placement granted Nina entry to the Nordic championships in 2016, which she won. “So I just got the spot and I was like, 'Whoa, this is such an honour, and I will take this so seriously.’ And then I just studied: I made a plan and I just spent every waking hour on studying.”
It's all in the preparation
Preparation for each competition is dominated largely by revision for the “infinite” theory test, which forms one of the three main aspects. Around six months prior to an event, Nina will start practising regularly for the blind tasting section and, a few months before, will address the practical service challenge by finessing her technique for efficiency and her vocabulary for precision and accessibility.
“I love to be challenged,” Nina explains. “I love to push myself. And I don't mind doing the reading part.”
Whilst some people might find the contests daunting, Nina is positively in her element: “It feels great. Honestly, it really does. It's super scary. I think everybody who works in service, they love the little adrenaline kick you get, right?”
Women in competitions
At the World’s Best Sommelier 2019, women accounted for seven out of the 66 entrants. Nina is keen to point out that, although women are not massively represented among the participants, those who do enter seem to do very well, often reaching the semi-finals. In 2019, three of those seven women were among the 19 semi-finalists.
“I actually find that, at least in many cases, especially in the international competitions, the judging is very fair,” says Nina. “But it's more about if you dare as a woman to begin in the first place – to say, ‘Ok, I can do this. I believe I have a direction to pursue here.’ Like, the confidence about it. I think that's more where we can already start to improve things.”
So the first problem is getting women to enter the competitions. Once in them, Nina experienced positive, respectful interactions amongst her fellow competitors and judging bodies. But move “one layer out,” to the realm of journalists and supporters, and “there isn't that same equal respect, and that just comes down to general culture. Those are the only times where I had experiences where I afterwards felt that, ‘that was just weird’ and it's led me to start asking some questions about things such as equality, which I had always underestimated growing up because I had felt always sort of equal.”
In those instances, some of the suggestions made to Nina included the idea that she might require a handicap, based on her gender; that her voice was too high to command respect; and that she appeared too emotional on-stage, thus holding her back from glory. Not only was this latter piece of feedback unhelpful but, in practical terms, it was unlikely to have been accurate since the strict time constraints of the competition hardly allow for contenders to waffle unnecessarily or become over-impassioned – or at least not to do so and then win silver.
“You are professional, it is a professional setting, so it's just nonsense,” Nina explains. “And to mask that behind passing on good advice, it's just not right, even though it comes from a good place.”
It could be (and has been) said that Nina should not take such criticism to heart. Regardless, her frustrations are shared by women – and men – the world over, as evidenced by those contacting her through social media.
On the restaurant floor
Being alerted to these conceptions about women via a more high-profile platform opened Nina’s eyes to the sexism pervading restaurant service – incidents that had given her cause to “wonder,” as she mentions in her Instagram post, but which she hadn’t previously scrutinised, let alone labelled, point to a larger problem. Classic examples include guests who ask to speak to the sommelier and, often without realising it, proceed to “act either disappointed or very surprised about it” when they learn it is the woman with whom they are already conversing. Or those who remain “hesitant” towards the wine recommendations made to them by women rather than their male counterparts, or even subordinates.
People are surprised that a woman can be responsible for a big wine program
“I think if you were to make statistics about how often would a guest that has precautions take a recommendation from a female sommelier versus the recommendation from a male colleague, I think the statistics would not be as we would like them to be.
“...In almost all cases I can recall, it has always ended up being a positive interaction, but it has required so much work getting there and gaining that trust ... because it started out in minus. So I see that as being the main thing – that people are surprised at first that a woman can be the one responsible for a big wine program, or a small one. Yeah, it kind of says it all, right?”
In Nina’s experience, this type of attitude tends to come more from international guests, making the global perspective of her Instagram followers all the more valuable when they started sharing their own stories with her. Upon asking further questions of these followers, and her fellow competitors, she came to the conclusion that “I was very lucky to be in this industry in Denmark and not where they’re at.
“There are some countries where it still seems very, very old-fashioned, and I don't want to point fingers or anything like that, but I’ve just been surprised about these are countries that could have just as easily been Denmark.”
A way forward
Nina has not made these observations as some bitter form of parting shot. To be utterly clear, this is not a case of sour grapes (pun wholly intended). Rather, by bringing these challenges into the open, Nina hopes to push wine and restaurant professionals into positive actions that could encourage more women into the industry, and remove potential barriers preventing them from reaching the top of it.
Her key areas of development surround the concept of representation because, if women can see other women excelling as sommeliers, and taking part in competitions, then they are far more likely to have the confidence to pursue those routes for themselves. “I really think representation is one of the absolutely most important tools we have,” says Nina. She recommends the following meaningful, yet manageable, steps:
• Self-promotion – “as women, we are not that self-promoting. Like I, definitely, have not been great at self-promoting at all. I think I’m not the only one who is not. So if we can somehow make it more accepted in our culture for women to also promote themselves, I think that would increase the visibility, it would increase that representation.”
• Content – “in this age of social media, it’s important to make sure to look over your content and if you have a woman in a ‘heading’ position, be it as a head waiter, restaurant manager, a head sommelier, head chef, whatever it is, make sure that she is as visible as you know she can be.”
• Recruitment visuals – if you’re posting ‘Hey, we’re looking for new sommeliers,’ which profile do you choose to represent that you’re looking? Are you always choosing that same [image] or are you actually open? And are you actually considerate of that?”
• Conscious management styles – “happening more and more but still something that needs to be prioritised, something that needs to be made time for and resources be put into. While promotions should always be competence-led, we owe to each other to establish what competence means in a workplace. It can't just mean: ‘great with guests and has good wine knowledge.’ Instead we should consider what values we are looking for in order to create a good work environment and build a strong team, looking away from an individualistic approach and towards a more holistic one. Consider how to create a culture that generates growth on all levels of employment and is inclusive, by management addressing norms, deciding which needs to be rethought and which should be upkept. A management that takes the role of culture leaders seriously.”
Nina’s next act
The studious nature that proved crucial to Nina’s competitive career is now prompting her enrolment at university in Copenhagen, to read political sciences: “I just love learning. It’s my biggest goal in life.
“Again and again and again and again, and even during the competitions, I would search out political content because I want to understand this world we live in – the society structures of the world we live in.”
From the foundations of democracy to economics, and beyond, Nina is excited to begin her next chapter and see where academia takes her. Cards on the table, have her experiences of being a woman in wine influenced her move away from the industry, if not prompted it?
“Not at all,” she says, after significant thought. “And that's really 100% honest here because it is not an issue that is [exclusively] existing in our world – it's something across industries. Yes, so I am very well aware that just because I change to something else doesn't mean that this goes away!
“I have not felt it that strongly upon myself, but I see people who have – women where it has been a huge factor in their lives. So this really had nothing at all to do with it. In fact, I only feel, overall, very positively received, with a very few exceptions, so no, this was not a factor, but I understand if it would be for people out there.”
The whole food and drinks world is such a core part of what it means to have a good life
In the meantime, @vonjensen’s Instagram post has received over a thousand likes, and counting. Nina admits to having been “a bit naive and optimistic” about being able to post the message with abandon and, instead, feeling unable to go to sleep once it was published “because I was full of adrenaline, sweaty palms. Because I said, ‘I know this can be polarising to some, and I have never seen myself as that figure.’”
Nonetheless, the feedback has been incredibly positive, including many messages of support: “so many people that I didn't expect to hear from that have been in contact, and also so many who just say the same thing: ‘Yes, we recognise this.’”
Of course, a love of wine doesn't simply disappear.
“It speaks to almost everybody,” says Nina. “So I feel, no matter which field you go on to, you can really bond over this. And also, this type of skill set you build in a restaurant is just invaluable. We learn so many things that people don't think about learning, like the types of structure, working a service industry; also literally, as your work, putting others first – I think it's beautiful to have that skill … and I think that the whole food and drinks world is just something that is such a core part of what it means to many to have a good life. So definitely, that will never get lost and it will always be a great conversation starter, I’ve found.”
Next up, Nina is judging Star Wine List’s competitions in Belgium and the UAE. Click the links to find out more.
Nina's full Instagram announcement
I would like to share some reflections on a topic I never thought I should speak publicly about. Yet I can’t let go of its importance, because being faced with it changed my view, so here we go…
I never truly understood, nor accepted that there should be any difference between genders in our wine world. Perhaps naively, I had therefore never subscribed to the notion, and only encountered it occasionally in a sort of wonder over remarks made by guests here and there.
In becoming more visible in competitions and exposing myself to judgement, my perception changed.
I have been told by a journalist that I am too emotional and too passionate in practical performances. I have been asked by another, if I didn’t think I should have a handicap, like you have in sports, but for being a woman. My voice has been deemed too high and not commanding respect by someone influential.
Let me be clear: I don’t believe any of that had a direct impact on my results. But I recognise similar judgements affect millions of lives every day. That is what makes it important.
I learned that there are, in countries considered modern by all standards, still existing cultural barriers to women holding top positions as wine professionals – most of the time as hidden biases.
Even if science illuminates some of these, for instance the facts that a man – across industries – has 20-30% elevated rhetoric ethos to that of a woman, it doesn’t mean that it is fixed. But it is a place to continue from, and is something I was terrified to recognise in my own subconscious opinions.
Connecting the dots to the (few) guests I have been puzzled by in their approach to me, I began to understand my potential results as something extending beyond my personal achievements.
We will forever have hidden biases to work on, and representation remains one of our most powerful tools in challenging them.
So I am honoured and humbled to have played even a small role in that effort to some people.
The world of restaurants is a generous one. I am so grateful above anything else for the people I have met in it. It can be a hard balance to give so much of yourself and still have something left. And that is what I am most awestruck by: our human capacity and willingness to share, which unfolds beautifully in the setting of a restaurant.
Now feels like a good time to tell those of [you] who don’t yet know: I have decided to pursue another direction away from restaurants and wine for myself – completely unrelated to this I would like to add! 🙂
To those which already knew – I miss you already and will always treasure our time together ❤️
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