| Courtesy of Modern Steak |
| Modern Steak's new sommelier is a real winner. |
A few years ago at a food festival, I overheard a so-called wine expert ranting about how women were lousy sommeliers. "It's not their fault of course," he drawled.
"It's all of those hormones! A woman's ability to gauge the taste of wine changes with her cycle, you know." There's at least one woman in town who'd disagree with those (amazingly sexist) blanket statements.
Sommelier Stephanie Caraway of Modern Steak at Scottsdale Fashion Square was recently selected as a Sommalier of the Year by Food & Wine magazine, alongside six other nationally known wine stewards.
Technically she nabbed the award for her ability to sniff out accessible French wines while working at Iowa's Chef's Table restaurant. But Iowa's loss is our gain.
Caraway's no stranger to Arizona. Before ditching us for the corn-fed Midwest, she worked as a cellar assistant for Peter Kasperski at Cowboy Ciao, Sea Saw and Kazmierz.
She was certified by the London Court of Master Sommeliers while in Iowa and was recently lured back to the desert by Fox Restaurant Concepts. Now that Arizona's wineries (Pillsbury, Arizona Stronghold, etc.) are coming into their own, hopefully Caraway will be the first in a line of wine experts to flock to Phoenix.
