The interview was by Merve Özaytekin, who took the headline from something I said: I do not teach wine so that people can show off with it. I still think that. Wine is not a way of climbing a social ladder; people want pleasure from it, not something to brag about, and I build my teaching around that. Anyone can taste wine, because wine is for everyone.
The piece coincided with the founding of Vinipedia. I was teaching people from very different worlds at the time, from executives to consuls, bankers to people in textiles; I was consulting for restaurants and hotels, and helping pair food and wine at private receptions.
It also tells the route there. I was operations and product manager at Paul, the French bakery and patisserie. Then I moved to ADCO, one of Turkey’s significant wine importers, working as an assistant and in marketing. And while I was teaching, I kept studying: the courses of Yunus Emre Kocabaşoğlu, then the advanced level of the WSET wine and spirits programme.
In 2010 I placed at the Turkish Sommelier Competition, and I was the only woman in the field. After that result the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs sent me to Spain to represent Turkey. That was also when I began the Court of Master Sommeliers certification path.
The practical things I described then have not changed. Tasting is not settled on the palate alone, it starts at the nose; you turn the glass, air the aroma, wake the nose up before deciding. Temperature changes taste. And a great deal of what we think we know about wine is only habit: rather than memorising that white goes with this and red with that, it is more useful to learn your own palate.