More than 20 sommeliers and wine professionals will gather at Wanderlust Wine Co.'s Eastside venue on Shady Lane next month, pouring wines from around the world to raise money for the people who keep Austin's restaurants and bars running. The event, called ATX Somms Presents Grapes for Good, is set for Sunday, September 13, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and it marks the second year the local sommelier community has turned a wine tasting into a fundraiser for hospitality workers.
The event, as detailed by CultureMap Austin, will feature an intimate tasting with premium and allocated wines available for sale by the glass and bottle, alongside local restaurant food bites, a wine ring toss, a silent auction, and a DJ, according to ATX Somms. Tickets range from $75 to $225, and organizers have warned the event is subject to change due to weather or other concerns. All proceeds go toward Good Work Austin's workforce development, advocacy, education, and healthcare initiatives.
From Flood Relief to Workforce Support
Grapes for Good began in August 2025 at the same East Austin venue, when the inaugural event drew more than 30 local wine professionals to raise money for the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund through the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, as reported by Do512. That first event was managed under ATX Somms' 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. This year's edition shifts its focus entirely to Good Work Austin, the nonprofit that supports the people behind Austin's hospitality community.
ATX Somms itself was founded in 2018 by wine professional Mandi Nelson and colleagues as a public service nonprofit offering free beverage education, monthly blind tasting practice, and sommelier exam preparation for hospitality workers around the city. Nelson also started Austin Shift Meal during the pandemic. Hosting the tasting is Wanderlust Wine Co., which opened its 13,000-square-foot East Austin location at 702 Shady Lane in July 2021 inside the former Infinite Monkey Theorem urban winery space, operating what it describes as the world's largest self-pour wine-on-tap concept with an 80-tap wine wall, according to Community Impact.
What Good Work Austin Actually Does
Good Work Austin traces its roots to 2017 and 2018, when a group of local independent restaurant and bar owners joined together to consult with the Austin City Council on drafting the city's paid sick leave ordinance. Restaurateurs including Adam Orman of L'Oca d'Oro were among the founding leaders, a history Hoodline previously touched on in coverage of ICE raids hitting local kitchens. Today the nonprofit partners with nearly 200 locally owned food and beverage businesses across Austin to promote fair wages, safe working conditions, and employee healthcare, per Scion Executive Search.
Since May 2020, the organization's Community Kitchen initiative has prepared and distributed more than two million meals to food-insecure Austin residents while reinvesting more than $10 million into the local economy by paying participating restaurants living wages for meal production, according to Good Work Austin. The program was created during the pandemic to keep restaurant staff employed when dining rooms shut down.
Training, Chromebooks, and Health Coverage
Good Work Austin also runs a free nine-week Culinary Workforce Training Program that provides 21 hours per week of hands-on kitchen training, transportation stipends, guest chef demonstrations, and Google Chromebooks to help people facing employment barriers land kitchen jobs, according to the Google Fiber Blog, which partnered with the nonprofit to help close the digital divide in job applications. Austin's food and hospitality sector employs more than 65,000 workers, one of the city's largest economic and tourism pillars, Good Work Austin told Spectrum News 1 in a Labor Day interview last year.
Because Texas law permits a sub-minimum tipped base wage of just $2.13 an hour, many of those workers go without health coverage. Good Work Austin connects eligible hospitality workers to care through its Healthcare Access Program and OS Benefits, an industry health insurance marketplace built to give small food businesses the same collective bargaining power as larger employers. That is the fund Grapes for Good ticket sales will feed directly this September, turning a night of tastings on Shady Lane into paychecks, training hours, and doctor visits for the workers behind Austin's restaurant scene.
