Jane Lopes

The Path

Wine study rewards a particular kind of rigor: maps, appellation law, producer context, and repeated tasting brought into the same frame. Jane Lopes trained at University of Chicago, and that academic grounding sits inside later work built around region, regulation, producer identity, and the practical conversion of study into usable fluency. The first trade position, as a wine retail employee, placed that knowledge in a daily setting where bottles are handled, questions are answered, and taste has to meet the needs of the person across the counter. Service sharpens wine knowledge under pressure. At The Violet Hour in Chicago, The Catbird Seat in Nashville, and Eleven Madison Park in New York, Lopes worked the sommelier’s station where recall, pacing, listening, and fit matter as much as cellar depth. The work is not address-collecting; it is learning how a bottle functions in sequence, at a table, with food, budget, mood, and guest expectation all in play. A Beverage Director’s cellar is a working argument, not a storage room. At Attica in Melbourne (2017–2020), Lopes became Beverage Director, with selection, glassware, and list architecture carrying the restaurant’s point of view. The role required judgment around origin, texture, farming, and placement: how a bottle reads when set beside a specific menu, a specific room, and a specific standard of service. Importing moves wine work from the table to the route that makes the table possible. As co-founder of Legend Imports in United States (2020–2026), Lopes worked with the movement of bottles across borders, shelves, lists, and trade conversation. The discipline shifts but does not soften: producer identity has to be carried through retail, distribution, and restaurant language without losing its shape. Today, Jane is Managing Director of Thatcher’s Wine (since 2026), working across a wider field of wine commerce and interpretation.

The Work Today

Retail, imports, and distribution each demand a different form of precision. At Thatcher’s Wine, Lopes holds the role of Managing Director, with responsibility across all three. Retail requires clear language and fast calibration. Imports require belief in the bottle and the producer. Distribution requires organization, relationships, and the ability to translate identity without reducing it to a sales line. Her current work sits where those demands overlap. Australian wine importing and advocacy in the United States form a defined part of the practice, informed by Legend Imports and by time working in Melbourne. The category is too varied to treat as shorthand. Its regions, farming, and expressions require the same attention given to any serious wine landscape: place first, assumption last. Lopes’s work has treated Australian wine as something to be read in detail rather than summarized from a distance. The study method behind the service is explicit: "I study quite a bit in my free time. I make my own study guides for every region of the world, with maps pasted in, producer profiles, appellation laws, flash cards, etc." That is trade infrastructure. The public ease of a recommendation depends on private systems: maps, profiles, laws, memory tools, and repeated contact with the material. For Lopes, the page and the palate work together; structure prepares the tasting, and tasting tests the structure.

Signature

Wine writing can extend the same craft used on the floor: selection, sequencing, context, and clear orientation for the drinker. Together, the titles hold two useful modes of the trade: the individual bottle as a vessel for life and memory, and Australian wine as a field that benefits from informed, specific drinking rather than broad assumption.

In Their Words “I study quite a bit in my free time. I make my own study guides for every region of the world, with maps pasted in, producer profiles, appellation laws, flash cards, etc.” “I found wine compelling on many levels – academically, intellectually and because of the connection between reading and experiencing.”

Acclaim

Recognition in wine is strongest when it points back to tested practice: study, service, advocacy, and the ability to make complex material usable. Jane's honors include Master Sommelier (2018), Early Career Achievement (2025), and Best New Sommelier. They mark sustained work across the floor, the cellar, the import channel, and the written explanation of wine.