Annie Edgerton, CSW, CSS
“I often say, many people have a hard time finding one thing they want to do for a job. . .I found two! And I am so fortunate that the nature of both jobs allows me to do them simultaneously.” Annie Edgerton, CSW, CSS, is that fortunate soul.
On the one hand, she is a professional performer, having been in the cast of Mamma Mia on Broadway and in the worldwide touring company of Kinky Boots. She has a yearning to sing for every Major League Baseball team, and thus far she has sung the ‘National Anthem’ or ‘God Bless America’ for 25 of the 30 teams!
And then there’s wine. Annie lives in New York City, where she works as a wine appraiser and consultant with her father, William H. Edgerton. He was the one who taught her how to approach wine appraisals before she was even old enough to legally drink. In the ensuing years she absorbed much about the world of wine, and started teaching classes in 2003 (the first one for her castmates on a rainy day off during a national tour). And it was around that time that she realized she needed to deepen her education—so, she jumped in with both feet.
Annie earned her Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW) certification with the Society of Wine Educators in 2011, the WSET Level 3 Advanced in the same year, the Certified Sommelier designation from the Court of Master Sommeliers in 2014. She just recently earned her Certified Specialist of Spirits (CSS) and the WSET Level 4 Diploma. She is now working toward her Certified Wine Educator (CWE) and plans to apply to the Master of Wine program.
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Meanwhile, Annie has been able to combine her performing skills and her love of wine as the host of ‘Broadway Buzzed’ and ‘Wine Minx: Uncorked’ on YouTube. She is working toward creating programming for television and/or major streaming platforms on the topic of wine.
Writes Annie: “What I hear most often from participants in my wine classes is: ‘I love wine, I just don’t know that much about it.’ So outside of the appraisal work, my main focus is helping fix that!”
Annie’s association with the Society of Wine Educators (SWE) has been a fruitful one. She has presented three seminars at conferences. In 2015: ‘Lets Talk Turkey,’ about the indigenous grapes and international blends from that country. In 2018, she offered ‘Outlier States: Wine Gems from the REST of the Country,’ featuring wines from Maine, Arizona, New Jersey, Indiana and Missouri. Last year, she and her father presented a seminar called ‘Heat, Floods, Fakes. . .and Skunks: the Art of Wine Appraisal.’ And she is on deck to present two seminars at the 2020 conference.
Throughout, she has followed her conviction that the best presentations are those which are personal in some way, which share a unique perspective beyond what is often encountered in trade seminars. She finds the SWE certifications to be very strong and the educational materials up to date, detailed, and helpful. And her expressed hope for the SWE is even wider industry recognition and respect. To that end she is on the Membership Committee, and will likely run again for the Board, with the goal of helping the leaders of the SWE attract experienced, vibrant, diverse young members from all aspects of the industry, who will in their turn help move the organization into the future and become leaders in global wine industry thought and practice.
Annie may be contacted through her website or her blog, Wine Minx.
Guest post written by Reverend Paul Bailey
If you are a SWE certificate holder and would like to be featured in our “On the Radar” series, please contact our Director of Education and Certification, Jane A. Nickles: jnickles@societyofwineeducators.org