MEET THE SOMM | Wei-Lin Chang

20 March 2026

Junior Sommelier at our London Club, 31-year-old Wei-Lin arrived into wine via a circuitous route, taking in classical piano training in New York, and an unorthodox military service in his native Taiwan

I grew up in Kaohsiung, the second city of Taiwan, but moved to the US when I was 16, to attend high school. I had been to a music festival in Boston, and, on my return home, I applied for a scholarship to study piano performance there. I didn’t tell my parents, and when I was accepted, I had two weeks to prepare. They thought I was crazy.  

Four years later, I was offered a scholarship into the Juilliard School in New York [the world-famous performing arts conservatory]. Juilliard is a tough environment – very intense – and I was practising around 8 hours a day. The way the practice rooms are designed, they look like prison cells, but they were my best companion. 

I performed at the Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Centre and Boston Symphony Hall, and I won prizes at different competitions, including the Gershwin International. Even so, by the end of the first year, I already knew that if the only thing I did for my whole life was play the piano, I’d regret it. So after Juilliard, I did a mini-MBA in General Management Studies at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and got a job in programming at a performing arts venue – Park Avenue Armory – which exposed me to lots of different art forms.

While I was in Taipei, I found a trendy ‘natural’ wine bar, and went there quite often to discover a side of wine that was new to me. Wine had always there, in the background. My parents were restaurateurs, running what we would call a ‘European’ restaurant (I guess you could say it was French/Italian, in a very broad sense). Within this, they ran a wine club, to which rich aunties and uncles would come and let me try the wines they brought. The first bottle I remember that really opened my eyes to wine was a 2007 Ducru-Beaucaillou when I was 15 years old. 

At the Juilliard, I played a lot of private concerts, often in mansions or apartments overlooking Central Park, and afterwards, there was always wine. Then on my 21st birthday – a rite of passage in the US, which most of my friends marked by going out and getting smashed on beer or cocktails – I bought a mixed case of six wines. I remember there was a Barolo – I don’t remember what – that cost $60, which was a lot of money for me back then. I drank it alone on the balcony of my apartment on Broadway. 

After Taipei, I came back to London to finish my architecture degree and my works were exhibited at the Tate, the London Festival of Architecture and Ars Electronica. I thought the world was my oyster, but I couldn’t land the jobs I wanted. So with time on my hands, I decided to study wine, to learn more about it. I knew the Wine and Spirit Education Trust was the place to go, but I didn’t want to spend too much money, so I went straight to Level 3 – and passed. Then I got a weekend job at a wine shop in Islington – High Ground – which is a coffee shop in the morning and a wine bar in the evening. I worked there for a year, and then figured that, since I was spending so much time pouring wine, I might as well do it at the best place. So I applied for a role at 67.

I landed an interview, but before that, I had a trial at Dorian [the Michelin-starred restaurant in Notting Hill]. When I got there, I suddenly realised that while I know how to talk about wine, I had no idea how to serve it. Sure, I’d poured wine at the wine shop, but it was very casual there – just one type of glass, all served at the counter. I’d never even used a tray before. I remember one table at Dorian ordered a bottle of white and a bottle of red, and I had no idea how to carry them both together in one hand. So I had to carry one in each hand, which doesn’t look so elegant. I was totally of my depth, just hoping I wasn’t causing too much trouble for the somms, and willing the shift to end. 

Luckily, that prepared me for my trial at 67. I’d been to tastings in the St James’s Room, and I always wanted to go upstairs and have a look around, but I didn’t have the courage. At home, I practised holding bottles – including two in one hand – and using a napkin to wipe the neck. Then, at my trial, Dolly [Chao, former Sommelier] very kindly showed me how to decant. The Club was packed, and the shift was super busy, and I must say it was tough. When Elton [Muço, Head Sommelier – Lounge Operations] offered me the role, I had to think hard as to whether I really felt I could do it. 

That was 18 months ago, and today, the sheer amount of wines we open here, and the rarity of some of them, still amazes me. That and how knowledgeable the Members are. I’ve learned more from the Members than I have from the books or the courses I’ve taken. Burgundy has become my favourite region. You have a given piece of land and just two grape varieties, but different interpretations from different producers. It’s like classical music. You have a piece that was composed hundreds of years ago, but it will sound different when performed by the London Symphony Orchestra compared to the Berlin Philharmonic. 

I still play the piano – Chopin and Schubert are my favourites. Next week I’m performing Mozart’s first piano quartet and some Taiwanese folk songs at the Taiwanese Embassy. Which reminds me – I need to go practise…