Texas Sommelier Tiffany Tobey Is One to Watch
story and photo by Lori Moffatt
If the Texas wine community were to organize an improv troupe, dynamic sommelier Tiffany Tobey could be the star. Recently, as we chatted over chilled glasses of passion fruit wine she’d brought back from a recent trip to Israel, I asked, “What’s your dream scenario [for your career]?” Tobey—who’s currently a graduate student in viticulture at Texas Tech University as well as the GM/sommelier of Fort Worth wine bar Thirty Eight & Vine—didn’t miss a beat in painting a paradisiacal future that included a combination winery, tasting room, and animal-adoption facility, possibly featuring rescued big cats “just to look at.” That said, she added, “My end goal, really, is to make my own wine. After I get my viticulture degree, I’d like to do enology. Then I’ll have my hospitality business degree, my somm certifications, viticulture, and enology . . . and see what happens. What’s cooler than understanding wine inside and out?” When opportunity knocks, in short, Tobey answers the door—often in a vintage jacket and a piece of her grandmother’s jewelry.
Tobey grew up in California but spent her high school and college years surrounded by vineyards in the Texas Panhandle, near Lubbock. While pursuing her business degree at Texas Tech, she went to Italy to study sustainable wine tourism “on a whim,” she said—and changed her career course after a few days immersed in the country’s romantic heritage. After graduation, she served as a somm at Delaney Vineyards in Grapevine, whose owners sourced grapes from her old stomping grounds in the Texas High Plains AVA, then went to work at the elegant Hilton Anatole in Dallas until the pandemic shut things down.
In between jobs, Tobey said, “My COVID thing was beef jerky.” Sommelier-made beef jerky? Why not? A brief stint at a Dallas-area country club hadn’t been a good fit, so Tobey hunkered down for a while in her kitchen, making jerky primarily for friends and family. “It’s my late grandmother’s recipe, made from London broil, and it takes days to do,” she explained. “I started making my own flavors because I really like pickles. Spicy-pickle beef jerky basically kept me afloat the rest of lockdown.”
Tobey said that while she misses the structure and sales volume of a hotel group, she’s learning invaluable skills at Thirty Eight & Vine, where guests can try wines by the ounce as well as the glass from dispensers along the wall. “For example, I’ve never paid much attention to labels before,” Tobey said. “But here, people try wines because the [visible] labels are cool. So now the artwork is important. It’s fun to see people have their ‘aha’ moments at the wine wall, when they discover something unusual they really like.”
A cheerleader for Texas’ promising terroir, Tobey remains receptive to experimentation in the wine world, whether it’s natural fermentation or the use of non– Vitis vinifera grapes. “I try not to be in a box,” Tobey said. “The fact that I don’t understand what someone is doing doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it. It just makes me want to learn more about it.”
