Highly regarded sommelier and wine communicator, Samantha Payne will be the master of ceremonies at the Wine Communicator Awards being held at Handpicked Cellar Door, Sydney on Wednesday 13 November.

Samantha was once the head sommelier for restaurants such as Manly Pavilion, 4Fourteen and China Land and is now consulting on numerous wine lists in Sydney.

She hosts the trade immersion trips for sommeliers and trade from all over the world in conjunction with Wine Australia.

For over a decade, Samantha has travelled locally and globally to make wine during vintage and interview winemakers in various wine regions all over the world.

She is known for her speciality in Australian wine and because of this has been the speaker on various panels and talks about the Australian wine and food landscape.

Samantha is the first sommelier to be invited to be a part of a global wine think tank which took place in Spain – 2016, Italy – 2017 and its third instalment found her return to Spain – 2019.

Samantha writes about wine, spirits, food and travels regularly for various publications and has been featured in Concrete Playground, Broadsheet, Decanted (UK), Condé Nast Traveller (USA) and hosts wine video channel ‘How to Drink Wine with Samantha’ hosted on The Guardian website.

Samantha joined the alumni of the highly sought-after Future Leader Program in 2015 and was the winner of the Australian Wine Research Institute ‘Advanced Wine Assessment Course’ scholarship in 2019.

This is the seventh year the Wine Communicator Awards have been conducted in an expanded format covering everything from print to digital.

The awards recognise outstanding contribution to, and excellence in, wine communication in all its forms.

In each of the nine categories, a short list of finalists is reviewed and selected by a panel of expert judges. A winner is then chosen in consultation with WCA Board.

The overall Wine Communicator of the Year is then chosen from the category winners. Finalists will be announced on Wednesday 13 October, and winners will be awarded at the presentation night in Sydney.