Sommelier · Author · Six years sober
The sommelier who tastes everything and drinks nothing.
I'm Duncan Gammie. I read wine for a living without ever swallowing a drop — and I'm here to show you that you can love the glass and keep your sobriety.
We make wine because we want to improve ourselves.— Lance O’Leary, the man who taught me wine
About
From a Hitchin drunk tank to the vineyards of California.
I grew up in Hitchin with a talent for trouble and a mother who wanted more for me than I wanted for myself. Her last wish was that I get out of that town. It took me longer than it should have to listen.
When I finally left, a name she'd written down led me to a Welsh vineyard owner named Lance O'Leary, who sent me across an ocean to help build a wine business in California. I stomped grapes. I scrubbed floors. I learned, slowly, that making wine is really about the work of making yourself into something better.
I climbed the ranks and earned my sommelier certification — and very nearly lost myself to the bottle in the process. What saved the wine for me was giving up the drinking entirely. I taste, I judge, I teach — and I spit every drop. I bring my own goblet to every bar, and more people join me every month.
Today I'm sober, certified, and planting cold-hardy vines on the East Coast — proof that something worth drinking can grow in the most unlikely ground. The full story is in my memoir, The Sober Sommelier.
The Book
The Sober Sommelier
Cover of The Sober Sommelier.
A memoir about wine, grief, addiction, and the strange grace of learning to love something you'll never taste the easy way.
A young man wakes in a drunk tank the morning after his mother's death, carrying nothing but her last wish and the name of a stranger. That name carries him from Hitchin to a Welsh vineyard, across an ocean, up the ranks of California wine, into and out of his own addiction — and finally into an identity no one saw coming: the sommelier who tastes everything and drinks nothing.
It's a story about the work it takes to turn a lowly life into something transcendent — one crushed grape at a time.
An excerpt
I woke in the drunk tank with my mother three days dead and her last words still going round my head: get out of this town. My knuckles were split. My mates were already outside with bats in the boot, ready to finish what I’d started the night before.
I told them no. I’d hardly listened to her while she was alive. It was about time I listened now.
Press & Booking
A ready-made segment for your show.
Duncan is a certified sommelier who has been sober for six years. He makes a lively, visual, fact-checkable guest — especially for Sober October and Dry January.
The hook
The sober sommelier: how to read a great wine, and find the non-alcoholic bottles actually worth drinking — without drinking a drop.
Great TV
Glasses, a spit goblet, and hosts playing along. A tasting demo that's fun to watch and easy to shoot live in studio.
Seasonal fit
Purpose-built for Sober October and Dry January, and a fresh spin on the holiday wine-pairing segment.
- One-line bioDuncan Gammie is a certified sommelier and author of the memoir The Sober Sommelier — and he's six years sober.
- Best segmentsLive tasting demo · non-alcoholic wine guide · his journey from addiction to sobriety in wine
- AvailabilityIn studio any weekday morning, New York / New Jersey / Connecticut and surrounding markets
- BookingSee the Contact page — a producer request gets a same-day reply
Contact
Get in touch.
For press, booking, events, or reader mail:
duncan@duncangammie.com
Find me around the web: