Emma Bentley writes this very powerful entry to our 2024 wine writing competition. See the guide to our competition for more.
Emma Bentley writes Emma is a trilingual wine professional with 15 years of experience in the industry. With a Masters in European Business and a CV which covers everything from purchasing, logistics and sales to pouring, serving and promoting, Emma has carved a niche in natural wine from Italy.
Her passion for event management, PR and communication means that even her day job is a source of satisfaction. She likes to write about wine on the blog (www.emmabentleyvino.com/) and about life in Italy on Substack (The Burnt Cream Magazine) but as wife to a winemaker and mother to two young children, time is scarce.
The wine moment I’ll never forget
This might make for uncomfortable reading but the wine moment I’ll never forget, which shook me to the core and dramatically changed the course of my career path was a sexual assault by my boss.
I had been taking my first steps in the wine industry. After covering the basics with a WSET course in London and yielding to the desire to get more practical experience, I moved to Paris - this was back in the days when a Brit could just move to Paris - and landed a paid internship at one of the city's oldest and most picturesque wine shops, Les Caves Augé.
I was 23 years old, bright-eyed, eager to learn and taste as much as possible. This was 2011, an exciting time when the natural wine boom was just starting to take off and winemakers who have since become mythical were still accessible.
“Condrieu,” I repeated. “CON-DRI-EU.” The policewoman still looked confused.
“A white wine from the Rhone, made from viognier grapes.” It turns out that my lawyer knew a thing or two about wine as well.
I added quickly, “he chose that wine because we were eating crab salad and then chicken curry. I had brought two grapefruits and a can of coconut milk to the dinner, like he asked.” (It’s curious how the smallest details can sometimes lodge themselves so firmly in your memory.)
Looking back now, I don’t know why I was so concerned about justifying our food and wine pairing in the police statement.
Ultimately, it really didn’t matter that the grapefruit in the crab salad was to make up for the lack of acidity in the wine and that viognier holds up surprisingly well with curry spices.
What I was trying to prove is that the Condrieu worked well with both the starter and the main course, so we’d only opened one bottle of wine during the dinner, and therefore it wasn’t in a drunken stupor that I had fallen asleep mid-meal at my boss’ house, as he was claiming.
Just over a year had passed since the internship and I was now working in a purchasing role within the same group.
During that time, alarm bells had been rung : when I was booting up the laptop to go through my internship report but he goes inside to take a shower and then appears in a towel ... Or at Anselme Sélosse’s hotel Les Avisés when it transpired that he had booked two rooms even though there were three of us.
Men will be men, I internalised. I had always said no or had a backup plan (in the form of Melanie Tarlant's sofa, for example.) The reason why this particular moment during the dinner with Jean-Michel Stéphan’s Condrieu shaped the course of my career in the wine industry is because I was not able to say no.
I'll spare you the details – but he invited me for dinner at his house in the suburbs. Yes, you might say I was naive for going but it was far from the first time I'd been there; and, no, there was never anything consensual between us. It was early August. Most of the restaurants in Paris were closed and it was stiflingly hot. The idea of sitting outside in the garden was quite appealing.
However, what I do not and have never found appealing is the idea of undressing and touching a person while they are asleep... but that night I realised that not everyone sees it that way.
I subsequently and swiftly moved to a company in the spirits industry that had a wine portfolio which they wanted me to develop.
About a year into the new job, I’m making small talk with one of our Californian suppliers: “how did it go with our sales guy yesterday?"
“Oh, it was great. He took me to this amazing place, Les Caves Augé - d'ya know it? - and I met the owner – really great guy, y’know– we sat down to talk together and he opened a bottle of Drappier Champagne – wow - and told me that he'd buy a pallet, if...”
My anxiety rises, my breathing quickens and my hands get clammy. I dart looks, pleadingly, beseechingly, across the table at my new boss to see if she would cover for me, were I to make an excuse to leave the room for a few minutes.
On the drive home from the office, I realised that I needed to quit that job and work for myself. I couldn't go public - the police investigation was still underway and I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise the proceedings - but I couldn't keep silent any longer. In order to recover personally and rebuild professionally, I was going to have to take more control. I needed to choose the people I work with and they needed to know I who I am and what my story is.
I went freelance exactly ten years ago and I haven’t looked back.
In July 2017, Marc Sibard was found guilty of multiple sexual assaults, and sexual and moral harassment on several women during their employment at Les Caves Augé and Vins du Monde. He did not appeal.
I have yet to drink another bottle of Condrieu.
Image by Constantine Johnny via Getty Images.