When she was a student at the University of Florida, Kara Joseph’s parents brought some wine back with them from Napa Valley, California. As she sat and heard stories from the trip, she couldn’t help but notice the magic that was in the air. It wasn’t long after her graduation that she decided to take a risk and escape to Napa Valley. She didn’t quite know what she was going to do yet, but the Jacksonville native knew where she wanted to be next. 

About two weeks away from the release of her first book, If Wine Could Talk, it’s safe to say her decision paid off. Kara developed her love and knowledge of wine throughout the process of becoming a sommelier, an expert on the ways of wine. She explained to me that originally a sommelier was a more proper position, often a professional on the floor of a restaurant offering wine recommendations and food pairings. Today, sommeliers can be wine educators via a virtual platform, opening a wine shop, or even writing a book. 

Next I decided to pick her brain and ask Kara what her favorite wine was, hoping that my Barefoot-plagued palette could get an upgrade. She immediately took me back to a moment from her first job in California, at a winery called Inglenook. Feeling frustrated at first that she couldn’t differentiate much between the tastes of the different wines, her co-worker offered her a sip of a 2011 Rubicon Cabernet Sauvignon. She said it was like adjusting a camera and the lens coming into focus. She finally got it. 

“Even more than wine, I love people,” Joseph said. She wanted to share her love of wine while being around as many people as possible. She described a certain “synergy” she feels when sharing a glass of wine with people. “You never know who you’re gonna meet. Wine is shared, a bottle between two to four people, everyone gets a part of the whole,” she noted when explaining to me what makes it different from other alcohols. 

Now back in Jacksonville, Kara is lining up wine tastings and book signings from St. Augustine to San Marco. Her book comes out September 21st and tells her story of becoming a wine connoisseur while dropping plenty of tidbits of wine knowledge along the way. Her journey is a great example of what can come out of having a vision and chasing it. She graduated with a communications degree but pursued something completely unrelated. There was always the risk of taking a spill of course, but Kara chose to see her glass as half full.