Inn at Little Washington wine director Lindsey Fern keeps checking her phone. Not for a text from either of her teenage daughters. Not even from her boss, acclaimed Chef Patrick O’Connell. In constant pursuit of unique wines to serve at the celebrated Michelin three-star restaurant, the 48-year-old sommelière hopes to hear from her wine distributor. And Fern isn’t just a sommelier. She holds advanced sommelier certification, making her a rarity in an industry primarily dominated by men.
“I’m always incessantly checking my phone to see if anything’s coming,” she says. “I want to find those special wines that diners can’t find or they’re never going to see somewhere else.”
Fern skillfully juggles the formidable tasks associated with heading the wine department at the renowned inn, overseeing the 14,000-bottle cellar that has earned the Wine Spectator’s Grand Award for over a quarter century.
Five nights a week, Fern offers wines by the bottle, glass, or in curated food pairings. Add to that her responsibilities for staffing, educating the inn’s other three sommeliers, and advising diners about all things wine-related, and Fern has a full—and fulfilling—plate at the prestigious Inn at Little Washington.
In her tenth year at the famous restaurant in the tiny village 67 miles west of Washington, D.C., Fern keeps a close eye on the innovative dishes O’Connell and his team dream up, strategizing perfect wine pairings for the five-course tasting menu. Her selections accompany the inspired American cuisine and typically hail from Europe, California, and Oregon.
“Chef O’Connell is so refined and so classic the way he makes food. I know his textures, I know where he wants acid to hit and creaminess to hit,” Fern says. “So it helps me whittle down those pairings pretty quickly.”
An Oenophile Years in the Making
Fern didn’t set out to make a splash in the wine industry. Born in Florida and raised in New York state, she graduated from Boston’s Simmons College with a degree in developmental psychology. On a four-year backpacking trip through Europe and Africa with rambunctious friends, she found her calling on a Cape Town winery tour.
She recalls that one of the South African winemakers admonished the rowdy group, saying “You’re all very rude—if you were quiet, you might learn something.” Duly mortified, Ferns says, “I shut up. I learned something and thought, ‘This is amazing—here are all the things that I love.’”
The global nomad eventually landed in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she began her sommelier education and worked in wine professionally.
“The excitement of helping someone with a selection of wine, opening it, serving it, giving them a great evening—Lindsey clearly had a passion for it,” says Fern’s former boss Greg St. Claire, owner of Avenir Restaurant Group in San Carlos, California.
Big Plans
In May 2023, The Inn at Little Washington announced extensive plans to expand, adding a full-service spa, additional guest rooms, a wine cellar, and more. Fern is thrilled.
“The new cellar will essentially surround a 20-person table where we can host wine tastings, private events, and dinners,” she says. “This is a total game-changer for us.”
And this wine director knows the end result will be well worth the effort.
“I just want to do something exciting for guests and have it resonate with them,” Fern says. “In service and everything else, you want to create experiences for people that just take their breath away.”
This article originally appeared in the August 2024 issue.
