Pascaline Lepeltier

Growing up in the Loire Valley and detouring from a master’s in philosophy and a career as a university teacher, Pascaline began her obsession with wine at the two star Michelin-rated L’Auberge Bretonne under celebrated Chef Jacques THOREL. Within a year, she was named both Best Loire Valley Young Sommelier and Best Brittany Sommelier. While working as Beverage Director at Rouge Tomate in Brussels, she interned at the George V in Paris under the direction of Best European Sommelier and Best World Sommelier runner-up Eric BEAUMARD. Promoted to the position of Beverage Director for the Rouge Tomate flagship in New York, she moved to Manhattan in 2009. Within months, she was named one of the five best new US sommeliers of 2011 by Wine & Spirits, one of the “New Wine Prophets” by Time Out NY, one of the “40 under 40” beverage influencers by Wine Enthusiast and called the “Natural Wine Evangelist” by Ray ISLE in Food & Wine. The NY Times prized her Rouge Tomate wine list as one of the best in NYC in 2013, and The World of Fine Wine awarded it “Best Long Wine List in the World 2017” and “Wine List of the Year 2017.” 

 In 2018, she became a partner in Racines NY, one of the top wine destinations in the USA. In 2022, alongside Chef Jonathan Karis, General Manager Jared David and wine guru David Lillie, she opened Chambers, a farm-to-table wine-focused restaurant in TriBeCa. She overlooks with sommelier Ellis Srubas-Giammanco a 2000+ wine list focusing on “vins de vignerons”, mostly organic, biodynamic and natural.

In 2014, Pascaline passed the Master Sommelier Diploma, and in 2018, she won 2 more major titles in her homeland: she is now a laureate of “Un des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France - Sommellerie” and Best French Sommelier 2018. In January 2019, the famous French magazine La Revue du Vin de France awarded her “Personality of the Year 2019”, the first woman to be given this prestigious recognition. In 2023, she represented France in the ASI Best Sommelier in the World held in Paris. She finished 4th.

Christina Rasmussen

Christina Rasmussen is a Danish wine writer, photographer, and passionate conservationist based in London.

She is the co-founder and Head of Content at LITTLEWINE, an online wine platform launched in April 2020. The platform aims to bring wine lovers and professionals closer to the makers and farmers behind the bottle through emotive language, photography, and film.

Christina is also a speaker for both consumer and trade audiences, covering nearly every aspect of the wine world, with a particular focus on environmental aspects of viticulture. Her clients include Beaujolais, Chablis, Austrian Wine, The Real Wine Fair, The New Old World Wine Fair, Vin de France, Côtes du Rhône, and Bibendum.

In 2021, she was the runner-up in Jancis Robinson’s wine writing competition. Christina is also an aspiring winemaker-farmer. When she’s not writing about wine or photographing winemakers, she can be found in a vineyard learning about viticulture or in a cellar learning the art of winemaking. Her first vintage was in 2019 in both southern and northern California, where she helped Abe Schoener of the Scholium Project set up LA River Wine Company. Two documentaries covering this journey are available on SOMM TV.

She also made her first wine during that time—a Palomino from own-rooted old vines in Contra Costa County, planted in 1930, which will soon be available for purchase.

In May 2021, she planted a one-acre vineyard in Oxfordshire with her sister, using a massal selection of Burgundian, Jurassic, and Savoyard varieties sourced from Lilian Bérillon. This vineyard had been several years in the making and was a dream come true for Christina, as she became the first person in the UK to work with Lilian’s vine material. The vineyard is still in its early days, with the first vintage expected in 2024, and is being farmed according to permaculture principles.