Member Spotlight: Andrea Robinson

Andrea Robinson isn’t just one of the world’s few women to earn the prestigious Master Sommelier title—she’s done it with historic firsts, a camera-ready charm honed over multiple television shows, and a portfolio of groundbreaking collaborations that challenge how we think about wine, business, and womanhood.

Transformation is something Robinson knows intimately as a wine expert, author and educator for programs like the Institute of Culinary Education. She left a promising Wall Street career to pursue her passion for wine, starting from the bottom—literally—volunteering to clean spit buckets at wine schools in New York in exchange for free classes at the renowned Windows on the World Wine School, founded by legendary wine educator Kevin Zraly. The pivot paid off. She became the first American woman to compete in the Concours Mondial des Sommeliers, or Sommelier World Championship, and the first woman named Best Sommelier in the United States by the Sommelier Society of America. Today, she’s one of only 25 women in the U.S. and 279 professionals worldwide to hold the Master Sommelier credential, a feat with a pass rate of around 4 percent. 

It’s exactly the kind of bold, values-driven leap that made Robinson a natural fit for The Extra Mile, a new profile series from luxury footwear brand TFR. A master of perfect pairings, Robinson gravitates toward the TFR Slingback in Champagne—a fitting nod to her go-to pour. “Can you imagine why?” she laughs. As for her favorite wine, “it’s not what most professionals probably would say, but I think I end up at white because of the champagne.”

For Robinson, every choice—from career pivots to style—tells a story.

From Wall Street to Wine Country

Robinson’s wine journey started almost by accident. While studying finance in college, she took a wine-tasting class for fun. 

“I had that lightbulb moment,” she recalls. “It's history, it's science, it's gastronomy, it's art, it's connection, it's culture.”

Her passion for wine had been sparked—equal parts sensory pleasure and intellectual rigor—and followed her to Wall Street. When her analyst program at Morgan Stanley ended, she realized if she didn’t jump now, she may “never have the guts to do it.” So she broke the golden handcuffs, skipped business school, and traveled through Europe on a UL public-transit pass and a youth hostel card, immersing herself in the centuries-old traditions of winemaking “in the hilltop town of Tuscany.”

The result was an entrepreneurial career that blended hospitality with strategy, sensory experience with storytelling. She quickly became a media entity. She hosted three food, wine and beverage shows—Simply Wine with Andrea Immer (Fine Living Network), Pairings with Andrea (Fine Living and Food Network), and Quench (livestreamed monthly on Robinson’s YouTube channel)—bringing beverage education to a national audience with her signature wit and warmth. 

She’s also the force behind The Sipping Point, an upcoming independent film project set to debut in 2026, timed to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the 50th anniversary of the 1976 Paris Tasting, a historic blind tasting that “transformed an 8,000 year old industry in 50 years time” and forever changed the global wine industry. 

The three-time James Beard Award winner’s inviting, inclusive approach to wine is as rooted in education as it is in deep expertise. Robinson teaches, writes, speaks, and consults for major hospitality brands like Delta Air Lines, where she’s curated the wine program since 2007, all while demystifying wine for newcomers and connoisseurs alike. 

She may have traded Wall Street for Napa Valley, where she’s based today, but Robinson still uses her financial background to pitch her brand as a food and wine expert with experience in hospitality for clients like Norwegian Cruise Line and Starwood Hotels. 

“Wine comes with its own trappings of superiority and self-importance and the stuffy sommelier thing,” Robinson says, explaining the delicate balance. “My approach is [to] become a big student of [a client’s] business, try to get a real clear picture of what they care about, and then ask them if I've gotten that right.”

When working with brands or hosting a tasting, her perspective on both business and wine has a common thread: validation. Whether it’s a brand partner feeling seen in her proposals or a guest discovering a flavor profile that confirms their instincts, Robinson finds joy in giving others that moment of recognition—and the confidence that comes with it. “I really take the world of wine and invite everybody into the sandbox,” she says.

“As long as the discussion around wine highlights the fun, the connectedness, the authenticity— everybody gets it. As long as you're not talking down to people, the people who already knew the answer just feel validated.” 

Unmatchable Experiences, Unmatchable Women in Wine 

With a moniker that stands for Timeless Form Reimagined, TFR and Robinson make a natural pairing. For Robinson, wine is both timeless and always evolving—like the unmatchable design and continuous improvement TFR represents—and her own continuous reinvention of what it means to be a woman in wine. 

“It’s timeless in the sense that it is always connected to a place.” To Robinson, “fine wine” doesn’t mean expensive wine, but wine with soul, identity, and intention tied to its source. She makes a point to mention environmental responsibility, and believes wine shouldn’t be treated as commodity, but respected and preserved. “Improvement requires treating the land as the resource that it is, rather than something to be leveraged [and] monetized.” 

When asked what her version of an unmatchable experience would be, Robinson doesn’t hesitate to combine wine with influential women. If she could sit down with anyone, she’d host a long lunch with the late Margrit Mondavi, known not just for wine but for her philanthropy and integration of the arts in Napa Valley, and South African vineyard activist Rosa Kruger, who champions the preservation of ancient vines that are 60 to 130 years old. Compared to regions like Napa, where vineyards are typically replanted every 30 years, Kruger’s work represents a rare kind of living legacy. 

“As people age, we are less productive, but we’re more interesting and have more to say,” Robinson says. “The wines from old vines are kind of cool that way too.” 

To Robinson, these kinds of conversations—where history meets hospitality, and tradition meets reinvention—are what elevate a moment into something lasting. 

“Experiences are kind of by definition unmatchable,” she says. “And so investing in the best of them is so wise, because that’s all we’re here for.”