Michelle Massie, of College Park, Maryland, is the first recipient of the Habibi Sommelier Scholarship Program, an initiative of the Wine School of Philadelphia and The Hue Society.
The announcement was made last week.
The Hue Society, founded by sommelier and entrepreneur Tahiirah Habibi, works to increase access, representation and opportunity for Black, Brown and Indigenous communities within the wine industry and wine culture. Creating this scholarship program, according to a news release, is intended to expand access to professional wine education and build pathways into the wine industry for people who have historically been underrepresented in the field.
Massie will attend the Core Sommelier Course this fall, traveling from Maryland to the Wine School of Philadelphia each Sunday to continue a wine education that has already taken several unexpected turns.
For 17 years, Massie worked in the federal government. Most recently, she spent five years as chief of business operations for the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Office of Legislative and Public Affairs. She previously served as senior adviser for operations and strategic communications at the Federal Railroad Administration.
When federal workforce reductions abruptly ended that career, a skill she had originally pursued as a side hustle became an unexpected lifeline. During the pandemic, Massie took up bartending part time. After losing her federal job, she took that course again, this time working full time as a bartender at The Elk Room in Baltimore, while considering where her experience, interests and emerging wine expertise might take her next.
“I feel like I have a decent handle on the things that I love — good food, good wine, good company — and some of the things that I’m most skilled in,” Massie said. “But I don’t yet have a good picture of how the two intersect.”
Years before the layoff, Massie had already developed a serious interest in wine and taken a job at a regional winery, hoping to deepen her knowledge and perhaps one day become a wine educator. Instead, she said, she was largely directed toward operational duties such as inventory and cleaning, with few opportunities to expand or use her wine knowledge. She said owners would sometimes step into conversations she was having with customers about wine and take them over.
The experience left Massie with the impression that wine was, in her words, a “white man’s world” and an industry designed largely for people who had grown up in it. Discouraged, she stepped away from wine for a time.
What brought her back was seeing a different vision of the industry.
While attending the Black Women in Food Summit in Washington, Massie sought out beverage-focused programming and discovered Habibi. She also encountered the work of wine professional and author Cha McCoy.
“I was really struck by the fact that Tahiirah and Cha were so authentically themselves,” Massie said. “They represented how Black women can show up and succeed in the industry without completely compromising their identity.”
For Habibi, choosing Massie is the first step in a long-term project.
“We didn’t just build a table; we built a bridge,” Habibi said. “Awarding the first Habibi Sommelier Scholarship is legacy in real time and proof that your start doesn’t have to be your finish.
“The goal was never just to make it into the room — it was to make sure the door stayed wide open behind me.”
Scholarship recipients in the Philadelphia region take the Core Sommelier Course in person at the Wine School; recipients elsewhere in the country attend the Level One Wine Course online.
What makes this initiative extra special for Keith Wallace, the Wine School of Philadelphia founder, is that Habibi originally came through its Core program as his student.
“There’s something pretty special about watching a former student come back years later and help create the opportunity for the next person,” he told The Wine Classroom.
The Wine School of Philadelphia commits $10,000 annually to the program. Scholarships cover tuition, examinations and certification, plus classroom wines for the in-person course.
“Having Massie in our classroom is a full-circle moment for me,” Wallace added. “Long before I joined the wine trade, I was a reporter for a historically Black newspaper in Baltimore. That experience changed the trajectory of my life, and I am so grateful to be able to fuse these two worlds together.”
For Massie, the opportunity comes at a pivotal moment. With both of her children now in college, she said she is able to devote more time to determining what she wants the next stage of her own career to look like.
“It’s such a freeing feeling to be able to be a little ‘self-centered’ with my time,” she said. “I’m excited to see where my own meandering path will lead.”
Applications for the Habibi Sommelier Scholarship Program are accepted on an ongoing basis at vinology.com/hue.
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