Some years ago I asked a film producer turned winery owner how he acquired his taste for fine wine. He smiled and whispered, “I have two words for you—per diem.’”

Once upon a time in Hollywood, discretionary funds for the good life were, as the kids say, “sick.” In an industry town built on bling, entertainment budgets were practically limitless. If you were an agent, producer, or studio executive, your job was to impress and maintain clients. And clients didn’t stay clients unless they were wined and dined.

That is roughly how great bottles became a form of currency in Hollywood’s ecosystem of obsequiousness, and how those in the trade routinely, if inadvertently, learned about wine. Collector culture in Los Angeles became one of the largest and most discerning in the country. Once you tasted the good stuff, it was hard to look back.

I bring all this up to introduce you to Serry Osmeña. Twenty years ago, she dipped her toe into this rushing stream and became a friend, advisor, and influencer to dozens of collectors who started out during the heyday. And now, with her new venture Grape Awakening, she has her eyes on the next generation.

Osmeña was born in the Philippines to a political family—her grandfather was that nation’s fourth president from 1944 to 1946, and her father, uncles and cousins have all held various political offices. After many pursuits and almost as many careers—including working at high-powered law firms in the “L.A. Law” era while enjoying a side career in dance and competitive aerobics—she pivoted to start Blue Chair Media. This publicity firm was devoted to three robust luxury markets—wine, watches, and automobiles.

Perhaps on another day we can speak of Bugattis and Breitlings, but today we’re here to talk about wine. Blue Chair’s wine and spirits clients have included Lokoya, Cardinale, l’Aventure, Vilmart, Patron, the Macallan—oh, and a modest startup in Champagne called Salon. Osmeña’s approach has always been a simple one—to put prestige bottlings in front of clients and collectors, letting them know that this wine needed to be on their radar or in their cellar. And to do that, Serry Osmeña threw parties.

Let’s call them seven-course parties. Let’s call them feasts. Let’s call them meals to remember, often staged in some friend’s capacious home with a view of the Pacific, a top-tier chef, a couple of pourers, maybe a guest speaker.

Sometimes that guest spoke about the wine at hand; more often than not at Blue Chair parties, the speakers spoke of anything but. “No one was allowed to talk about tons per acre or months in oak,” she says, noting that the wine was often in the background. “I wanted everyone to feel a camaraderie, to enjoy the evening, to experience the wine as part of the conversation.” Instead, she enjoined experts in tech, finance, culture, and the arts. Her most unusual guest? She thinks a minute—“Probably the guy who had lived through a great white shark attack.” TED Talks had nothing on Blue Chair.

Her guests were carefully selected, trusted peers, and the goal was to create assurance. “You’d come because you knew you were going to meet someone worth meeting,” she says. “or listen to someone who would captivate you. In a room full of vetted peers, you’d feel comfortable, and you’d end up having that extra glass.” Bringing people together became her specialty. “It only takes one idiot to ruin the table.”

Within a decade, she was a conduit for dozens of high-profile collectors, traveling in their circles with ease. In 2017, she sold Blue Chair and began a non-compete period of about five years. Her collector friends remained friendly, and generous with their bottles. They did, however, get older and their buying habits slowed. Some even began selling off parts of their collections.

By this time Osmeña had made inroads into tech, including the crypto field, as an advisor and strategist. Also by this time her sons Kristian and André were of drinking age. Her son Kristian moved to New York to work in finance. When she’d visit him and meet his friends, she found a well-heeled, well-meaning coterie of young financiers who loved the good life, but didn’t yet have the knowledge or the skills to pursue it.

That’s how Grape Awakening was conceived, as a wine handholding strategy for millennials, Gen Y and Gen Z. She began circulating at tech conferences and gatherings, offering her services to tech studios, private equity firms, and the like, putting together events for young executives such as her son and his friends. They were informal affairs where attendees could get their bearings in the world of wine among peers. Together they’d be able to take the steps that every collector has to traverse in order to appreciate and collect great wine.

Of course, Osmeña is launching Grape Awakening into a drastically different social fabric. Wine, for one thing, isn’t as affordable as it once was. “Good wine is so expensive; they can't afford to drink like we used to,” she says. “But that doesn't mean there isn't a desire.” Fortunately, you can also start small and build quality and tradition into the mix with time.

But the other thing that’s changed is sociability itself. “We live in a world where we spend most of our time looking at screens,” she says. “All of us need a little time to work our emotional intelligence muscles.” This is even more true for the techies—after spending whole days glued to data screens, they need human connection more than anyone. “They need to socialize,” she says, “they need something to counterbalance the digital grind.”

We’re a long way from the days of the bottomless per diem, but as long as wine remains part of the social fabric, there’s hope.  “The proliferation of AI is going to leave humans with a yearning for the analog,” says Osmeña, “for being physical and face-to-face with others who have similar interests. If the atmosphere is right, if the people there are interesting, you’ll remember the wine, and the quality of the experience. I think that's my gift in all of this. I think that's my superpower.”