Smart New Wine Innovators

F&W's Megan Krigbaum tracks down an expert wine tour guide, a brilliant sommelier-turned-inventor and a new online wine shop with super-value bottles.

Aldo Sohm, star sommelier at Manhattan's Le Bernardin. Photo © Maike Paul.

Wine-Country Tour Guide

Carrie Simon spent months staying in hotels, visiting wineries and meeting with fly-fishing outfitters and other outdoorsy types in Washington state's Yakima and Walla Walla wine regions. All this on-the-ground research informs her tailor-made travel itineraries for her new travel-planning company called Washington Wine 9.

Sommelier-Inventor

Austrian native Aldo Sohm, the star sommelier at Manhattan's Le Bernardin, recently collaborated with renowned winemaker Gerhard Kracher to produce Sohm & Kracher, a spectacular Grüner Veltliner from the Niederösterreich region of Austria. Sohm has also teamed up with the French knife company Laguiole to make what he describes as "the Ferrari of corkscrews" (priced accordingly). $45 for wine, $220 for corkscrew; winemonger.com.

Online Impresario

Every bottle in Etty Lewensztain's well-curated new online wine shop, Plonk Wine Merchants, costs $30 or less and comes with a video tasting note. plonkwinemerchants.com.

Plus: More Innovators and Brilliant New Wines

Sommeliers' Favorite Wines

40 Big Food Thinkers 40 and Under

What Sommeliers Know Best

Published March 2011