WOMEN+POWER: Tonya Pitts

For 31 years, the venerable One Market restaurant has held its own in San Francisco’s Embarcadero district. And for 17 of those years, one incredible woman has led the wine program at the tony eatery, winning accolades for herself, the establishment, and leading broader efforts across the wine industry to ensure greater diversity and equity for women and people of color.

Tonya Pitts is clear in how she got where she is: “I didn’t choose wine. Wine chose me and I listened.” She never set out to be a sommelier. In fact, she was in a pre-law program and headed in that direction, but the summer before her university studies started, she’d taken a job in a French restaurant whose owner spent 10 years in Provence. “This was the beginning of my journey in food and wine,” she told Polo Lifestyles. She then journeyed to the City by the Bay and her path was set. “Everything shifted after a visit to San Francisco. I moved to the city and that’s when wine life really began for me. There was the excitement of the neighborhoods, restaurants, and people….it was an opportunity for me to learn more about food and wine.”

Learn she has. Pitts is a certified sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers, in 2022 was given the Wine Star Award for Sommelier of the Year by Wine Enthusiast, and last year was included in the Best Black Sommeliers list for the inaugural Ebony Food and Wine Honors. These are just a few of the bona fides she has racked up in her career to date. For One Market, every year since 2011 the restaurant has received the Best of Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator for Tonya’s exceptionally curated wine program, which pre-pandemic, had nearly 1,000 bottles on the list.

Beyond her impeccable palate, Tonya has exemplified a deep care for her industry and its openness to women and people of color. “This is an exciting time for women in the world of wine. We have always been in the food and hospitality industry [but] there is still so much work to do, which is why it’s important to mentor people who are interested and excited about hospitality, food, wine, and beverages.” Pitts is involved with Les Dames D’Escoffier, an organization of philanthropic women that offers fellowships, scholarships, and awards.

As a woman of color, Pitts focuses special attention on the role of mentor for other people of color seeking a future career in wine. She serves on the Advisory Board and as a mentor to others in the field for Wine Unify, a nonprofit organization created to bring down the barriers to equity in wine careers by “fostering wine education for underrepresented minority groups, and amplifying the voices of the people of color who are already thriving in the wine industry.”

Another of Pitt's philanthropic pursuits is serving on the Board of the United Sommelier Foundation, which assisted many sommeliers who found themselves in financial challenges when restaurants were shuttered during the pandemic.

Earlier this year, Pitts was tapped to join Wine Enthusiast. It is an important perch for one of the world’s greatest wine regions. “This role gives me even more opportunity to be the Pied Piper of wines in California [and] I am extremely excited about this new role and the opportunity to highlight producers in California.”