Samantha Payne

Biography

Samantha has been the Head Sommelier of restaurants such as Manly Pavilion, 4Fourteen and China Lane and is now currently consulting on numerous lists in Sydney such as Museum of Contemporary Art and the ‘Bar at the End of the Wharf’ at the Sydney Theatre Company and the newly opened ‘Crafted by Matt Moran’ restaurant inside the Art Gallery of New South Wales to name a few.

Over the course of her career she has travelled locally and globally working in the Australian wine community and has interviewed winemakers in various wine regions all over the world. She is known for her specialty in Australian wine and because of this has spoken on various panels and talks about the Australian wine and food landscape both nationally and internationally and is the first Sommelier to be invited to be a part of a global wine ‘think tank’.

Samantha also writes about wine, spirits, food and travel regularly for various publications and has been featured in Concrete Playground, Broadsheet, Decanter (UK), Conde Nast Traveller (USA) and hosts wine video channel ‘How to Drink Wine with Samantha’ on The Guardian alongside her regular features on The Guardian Australia. As of December 2020, she is the monthly drinks columnist for Gourmet Traveller.