Highly regarded sommelier and wine communicator, Samantha Payne will be the Master of Ceremonies at Wine 
Communicators night of nights, 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, such as The Governors Table, Bar at the End of the Wharf and the Mint Building. Today 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.
Now an experienced writer Samantha writes about wine, spirits, food and travels regularly for various publication 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.