Scientist-Turned-Winemaker Wins Prestigious Award

Saltbird Cellars owner and winemaker Robin Epperson-McCarthy ’03 received one of seven 2019 Legacy Awards from Les Dames d’Escoffier International (LDEI). Epperson-McCarthy’s “beverage and hospitality award” from LDEI member Wente Family Estates in Livermore, California, afforded her a weeklong mentorship at Wente Vineyards. Epperson-McCarthy, who studied biology and pre-med at UMW, started the Saltbird Cellars on the North Fork of New York’s Long Island in 2003. According to her website, while studying for the MCAT exam and a future in medicine, she heard about a job that could use her science education, and her career in wine was born. She never sat for the MCATs.

LDEI, supported by The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, is an international organization of female leaders in food, fine beverages, and hospitality, whose mission is education and philanthropy for the good of the global community.