Sep 3, 2026 · 1 hr 3 min · 12 segments
This week Hillary is joined by her dear friend Samantha Capaldi — certified sommelier and founder of the Sam Somm Wine Club — for a wildly unfiltered, tangent-filled chat (yes, there's a mid-episode…
Hillary BautchHost
So being a sommelier, I found a stat, you know, we've talked a lot about on previous episodes of the show about just.
Women in any kind of professional industry, it's always, you know, as we know, kind of a boy's world.
And it's hard to break into any industry, especially if you're trying to be kind of a trailblazer as a woman and start your own thing.
Only a little over 30% of psalms are women, and that drops to only 11% when you get to the master psalm.
Talk about your experience kind of carving out a place for yourself in that industry.
You know what's funny, Ellery? When I entered that sommelier training program class, I didn't really think about it being a male-dominated industry.
Like, I guess I didn't really think anything too much about the wine industry, but just like most industries, yeah, it is male-dominated.
And so I slowly kind of realized that, you know, again, being naive, like, oh... all the guys were teach so we had master psalm teachers there was no woman teacher with all men um most of the people in the class were men the smaller percentage women so you know slowly realizing that so what I kind of figured out is I'm 23 I already you know I'm limited because of my age and my experience so even if I get my street creds of becoming a certified sommelier I'm I still am so young and green where like, I just, I can't even be like, Oh yeah, I've worked here, here, here, here.
Like I felt even after becoming certified, I, I felt I didn't deserve to have the Psalm role in a restaurant, you know, regardless of a woman or a man.
So I, I feel like, The biggest thing for me was how I acted when I first started doing tastings and working in the restaurant.
But I wore pencil skirts and I wore tucked in silk blouses like I went to Express a lot.
So being a sommelier, I found a stat, you know, we've talked a lot about on previous episodes of the show about just.
Women in any kind of professional industry, it's always, you know, as we know, kind of a boy's world.
And it's hard to break into any industry, especially if you're trying to be kind of a trailblazer as a woman and start your own thing.
Only a little over 30% of psalms are women, and that drops to only 11% when you get to the master psalm.
Talk about your experience kind of carving out a place for yourself in that industry.
You know what's funny, Ellery? When I entered that sommelier training program class, I didn't really think about it being a male-dominated industry.
Like, I guess I didn't really think anything too much about the wine industry, but just like most industries, yeah, it is male-dominated.
And so I slowly kind of realized that, you know, again, being naive, like, oh... all the guys were teach so we had master psalm teachers there was no woman teacher with all men um most of the people in the class were men the smaller percentage women so you know slowly realizing that so what I kind of figured out is I'm 23 I already you know I'm limited because of my age and my experience so even if I get my street creds of becoming a certified sommelier I'm I still am so young and green where like, I just, I can't even be like, Oh yeah, I've worked here, here, here, here.
Like I felt even after becoming certified, I, I felt I didn't deserve to have the Psalm role in a restaurant, you know, regardless of a woman or a man.
So I, I feel like, The biggest thing for me was how I acted when I first started doing tastings and working in the restaurant.
But I wore pencil skirts and I wore tucked in silk blouses like I went to Express a lot.
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