Laura Hernández

The Climb

Pairing is the core of Laura Hern’s work: the discipline of making one element show the shape of another. In Bogotá, that craft has been built across gastronomy, wine, and development, with Laura Hern moving between the table, the cellar, and the larger systems that support both. EAS wine school is part of that formation, and the result is a career that reads as methodical without losing its live wire. Management at La Sala de Laura gave Laura Hern a working base where taste, timing, and responsibility had to sit together. From there, the role expanded into leadership, with Laura Hern taking on decisions that reached beyond what was poured or plated and into how the whole operation held together. Since 2009, she has been the executive director of FunLeo and the head sommelier of Leo, positions that place her inside both the list and the structure around it. The thread running through Laura Hern’s practice is not simple matching but connection: between flavors, between disciplines, between service and development. In trade terms, that means reading the immediate needs of the room while also keeping sight of the longer framework behind it. Pairing, for her, is not a garnish on the work; it is the organizing principle.

Today

Pairings remain the center of Laura Hern’s daily practice, treated as both technique and direction. That focus keeps the work grounded, but it does not narrow it. It gives her a way to move outward without losing the line of the craft. The line points to a working habit shaped by contact—new people, new settings, new problems to solve. It is curiosity with a purpose, the kind that stays tied to practice rather than novelty.

In Their Words “Gastronomy has always been a part of my life, and the world of wine and development are puzzles that have come together.”

Recognition

Laura Hern’s work sits at the intersection of gastronomy, wine, development, and pairing. The range matters less as a list of interests than as a way of working: one that depends on relationships, continuity, and the technical judgment needed to make those relationships count at the table.