Erin Scala

Service is where the wine side of the work often starts, and for Erin Scala it started in 2006 at Fleurie Restaurant in Charlottesville, Virginia. That first floor role gave early shape to the pace, discipline, and room-reading that later carried into buying and directing. By 2013, Scala had moved into the Head Sommelier seat at The Musket Room in SoHo, Manhattan, New York, where the wine list required precision and steadiness.

Wine Director roles at Public Restaurant in Manhattan, New York, and at Fleurie Restaurant in Charlottesville, Virginia, followed, extending that same logic across different dining rooms. The work there carries forward the same core tools built across service and cellar: attention to guests, fluency with wine, and the ability to shape a program with a clear point of view. The thread running through the career is not reinvention so much as continuity — a close read of wine, room, and place.

The range of rooms matters in Scala’s work: server at Fleurie Restaurant, Head Sommelier at The Musket Room, and Wine Director at Public Restaurant and Fleurie Restaurant. Those roles map a career built around how wine functions in service, not just on paper. Each post adds another angle on the same discipline: matching bottles to food, managing the pace of a room, and making selections that hold up under real use. That same habit of attention shows up in how Scala talks about regions.

Of Waitaki Valley, they have said: “Waitaki Valley! It’s awesome! This new region in New Zealand has limestone soils and the rieslings and pinots that come from here are pretty profound; try Valli Waitaki Pinot Noir or Ostler Waitaki Riesling.” The quote is a useful window into the work: soil, grape, region, and bottle named plainly, with enough specificity to point another professional in the right direction.

Erin's honors include James Beard Rhône Rangers Travel Study Grant and Wine Enthusiast 40 Under 40 wine professionals to watch.