You could say she’s never looked back-though she also hasn’t abandoned her artistic tendencies as the Hong Kong-based wine expert employs her art background to create visual tasting notes where she combines photographic, hand-painted and digitally crafted elements to produce visual representations of the wines she tastes, as well as working as a wine buyer, brand ambassador, writer, judge and television host.ĭo you have any early wine memories that were significant or impacted your decision to pursue a career in wine?

Her first love was art, and she had enrolled at Yale University to study Fine Art when she was overcome by a desire to go to culinary school, which in turn led her to an internship in Italy where she discovered the beauty of Barolo and Barbaresco.

Sarah Heller may be Asia-Pacific’s youngest Master of Wine and the world’s youngest female Master of Wine, but to pursue a career in wine was never her original intention. In our new series, Meet The Master, we talk to MWs about their journey to mastery, those formidable exams and what in the wine world is wowing them right now, from fun pairings to under-rated regions to the rapid developments taking place within wine in Asia. This is partly because the exams to achieve the coveted qualification from the UK-based Institute of Masters of Wine-comprised of extensive theory learning, blind tastings and a 10,000-word research paper-are notoriously rigorous, taking a minimum of three years to complete with pass rates of around just 10%.

That’s fewer people with MW after their name than have been to space. Less than 500 people have passed the Master of Wine exams since 1953, and there are currently just 420 Masters of Wine in the world.

Taking by Sarah Masters