How this Missouri sommelier is making the culture of wine more inclusive

ST. LOUIS — Before she became a sommelier and an entrepreneur, Javia Gilliam-Sanford put herself through graduate school by working at a big box liquor company. There, she nurtured her passion for wine, jotting down tasting notes of the wines she was selling to customers.
But unlike a good wine pairing, she wasn’t sure her first blush with the industry was a good match.
“The ultimate reason why I got into wine is because you really don’t see Black women in this space,” she said.
The wine industry, which is overwhelmingly white, isn’t known for its diversity.
Out of about 11,600 wineries in the U.S., fewer than 1 percent are Black-owned, according to the Association of African American Vintners.
There are a number of national and international wine training organizations that offer sommelier certifications. Among the most prestigious is the Court of Master Sommeliers, which offers four levels of study. Fewer than 300 people have earned the highest title of “master sommeliers” and only four of them are Black. In the Americas chapter, only 25 master sommeliers are women.
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In a broader survey of Court of Master Sommeliers members in 2022, 38 percent of respondents said they were women and 3 percent said they were Black.
Only 18 percent of C-suite positions in the food and beverage distribution industry were held by women, according to a 2024 “Women in the Workplace” report from McKinsey. That number rose to 27 percent in the food and beverage manufacturing industry.
For Gilliam-Sanford, this lack of representation mattered, and when she joined the some 22 million people who lost their jobs in the first couple months of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was time to start thinking outside of the box.
She learned that the Court of Master Sommeliers launched an online program for its introductory course and examination in 2021 as part of an initiative “to create a safer and more inclusive community” within the wine organization.
As the mother of a 1-month-old at that point, that opportunity “put a fire under my butt.”
She took the organization’s introductory sommelier course and spent her time studying and making flashcards that overflowed with info on the many wine-producing countries, kinds of wines, and soils.
“I can tell you things about soil that no one cares about,” Gilliam-Sanford said.
She earned her level 1 certificate from the Court of Master Sommeliers in April 2024.
Though the pandemic had a physical impact on many people, for some it was a moment of redirection, said Marvin Steele, president and CEO of the Heartland St. Louis Black Chamber of Commerce.
Whether out of necessity or by choice, it was a time when people made “some different kinds of decisions about what they were going to do going forward,” pushing people into the direction of careers that they had only dreamed of previously, he said.
Indeed surveyed more than a thousand people across the country who quit at least two jobs since March 2020, or what was known as the “Great Resignation.” Ninety-two percent said the pandemic “made them feel life is too short to stay in a job they weren’t passionate about.”
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The Heartland St. Louis Black Chamber of Commerce is made up of about 500 due-paying members, and houses 20 local Black-owned businesses. For Steele, not only is Black business thriving in St. Louis, it’s the key to success for the region.
“Without the support of [Black business], without its existence, we will never reach our full potential. It’s impossible,” he said.
Steele said there’s a “mentality shift where [Black people are] beginning to recognize our own value, and what comes along with that then becomes entrepreneurial. We know that there really are two things: We know that we have a market in ourselves, but we also have the confidence to scale and pursue a broader market.”
The liquor and wine industry being largely dominated by white men didn’t stop Gilliam-Sanford. In 2021, she and her husband opened a mobile bar. For four years, the duo has pulled the bar, called Pour Decisions, around St. Louis to share various wines and specially crafted drinks and the histories behind them.
Javia Gilliam-Sanford and her husband launched a mobile bar in 2021, in the hopes of bringing worldly cocktails to the broader St. Louis community. Photo courtesy of Pour Decisions
“Despite the narrative around [wine], it’s not an elitist thing,” she said. “We’ve been drinking it to keep us alive since the beginning of time. … and then, somewhere along the line, it’s become this thing that it’s almost really hard to penetrate the circle of.”
She wants everyone to have access to the world of wine, including people who haven’t tried the ancient drink yet. A “cool somm,” if you will.
My goal “is to be a resource for everybody in the community who wants to drink but may not know where to start.”
Gilliam-Sanford is now dreaming bigger. The mobile bar, which started as a graduate student’s passion project won’t be the only space she and her husband own. This year they opened their first-ever brick-and-mortar spot, The Passport, in downtown St. Louis.
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The sommelier wants to transport people to another place with one sip, serving as a tasty “passport” to cocktails from all over the world.
“We didn’t have capacity to do that on our little bitty horse trailer. So, I think it’s just good for us to have the opportunity to put our best foot forward, as mixologists and business owners and sommeliers, and just give something to the community,” she said.
Nearly a decade after realizing wine could be a part of her story, Gilliam-Sanford said the core of what she does remains the same: creating a space where others feel they can exist, too.
“If there’s something that you feel like you don’t see yourself in, it’s OK to be the first or the third,” she said. “It might be hard, and I think it has been hard for me to really find my circle of other wine drinkers and just sit down with other industry people, but I have found a circle that’s really good.”