Whitney Hughley
Whitney Hughley is a private sommelier under the moniker, PourWhitAnother which began in January 2022. Whitney hails from the City of Champions, aka, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She dropped out of high school, received her GED and applied to the first Historically Black College & University, Lincoln University and obtained a Bachelor of Science in Broadcast Journalism in 2010. She continued her education and received Master of Arts in Communication Studies from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico in 2013.
Whitney has had a plethora of entertainment-based internships and jobs; she hosted her own radio show, “As Real As It Gets” on WWLU from 2009-2010 and then took her talents behind the scenes as a high-level camerawoman, working for ESPN, the United Nations – New York Headquarters (UNTV), Playboy Plus Entertainment, CBS, RUSH Communications/Def Jam, Fox Sports and the Phoenix Final Four. Since leaving the entertainment industry, Whitney has worked as a high-risk property insurance claims adjuster, from Nationwide to USAA.
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Whitney’s passion and palate for wine grew when she relocated to Phoenix in 2015. To her surprise, Arizona has an abundance of wineries and wine growing regions and began her exploration of the industry. Page Springs Cellars in Cottonwood, AZ is her favorite winery in the state as it partners with wineries in New Mexico (her second home). It was not until she met a retired sommelier, Linda, a tasting room attendant at Cooper’s Hawk Scottsdale, where Whitney decided to take her love of wine on the educational track. Linda encouraged her to learn and study wine professionally and in January 2022, Whitney flew to Napa to attend Wine 101 at the renowned Napa Valley Wine Academy.
Whitney returned to Napa four months later to start her WSET in Wines matriculation with WSET Level 1. On May 19, 2022, she hosted her first large-scale food and wine pairing event in Phoenix to a sold-out crowd. In June, she received her WSET Level 1 Certificate and has served as an ambassador for the Boisset Collection of Napa, appointed president of the Phoenix Chapter of Black Girls Wine Society and president of PourUSAnother Private Wine Club in Phoenix. The SommFoundation awarded her the WSET II in Wines Scholarship which she plans on taking the extensive two-day, on-site course at NVWA in November.
Whitney successfully hosted 17 private in-home wine tastings and pairings in the Phoenix Valley since starting PourWhitAnother. She has recently relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada and has networked with numerous sommeliers in the hopes of continuing her private wine pairings in Sin City.
