Linda Lawry, a well-known wine educator who lived on East 87th Street in Manhattan and, until three years ago, on Babe’s Lane in Springs, died of cardiac arrest on Nov. 25 at the age of 74.
A friend, Bonnie Eisenhardt, said Ms. Lawry, who had lived in the Springs house from childhood, was forced to sell it because of health problems in 2018, the year she retired as director of the International Wine Center in Manhattan.
Her successor, Mary Gorman-McAdams, said in an email this week that “for me, and for countless other wine professionals in New York City, Linda was the reason they pursued wine as a career. . . . She was graceful, selfless, and inspiring. While wine education was her life, she could hold her own on any topic, whether it was art, history, politics.. . .”
“When I moved to New York 20 years ago and decided to change careers,” Ms. Gorman-McAdams continued, “she gave me my first wine teaching opportunity at the school and encouraged me to pursue my dream of becoming a Master of Wine. She always put others first. We traveled together to many wine regions, we presented together at wine conferences, we laughed together, and enjoyed many a wonderful glass of wine. . . .”
Ms. Eisenhardt said that “a lifelong interest in cooking prompted Linda to study at the New York Culinary School, where she graduated as the valedictorian. She joined the I.W.C. staff in 1985, first as a special events director, and, in 2000, became the overall director, until her retirement in 2018. During her long tenure she was known for her warmth, kindness, grace, and for her extraordinary teaching skills.”
A certified wine educator and certified specialist of spirits, titles she earned from the Society of Wine Educators, Ms. Lawry “served on the society’s board for many years,” and taught a wine and spirits course at New York University from 1997 to 2016. “As a teacher, Linda never stopped learning,” Ms. Eisenhardt said.
A member of Les Dames d’Escoffier, a philanthropic society of professional women in the food, fine beverage, and hospitality industries — a society that “helps young female hospitality professionals pursue their careers,” Ms. Eisenhardt said — Ms. Lawry “chaired many of the New York chapter’s committees, including its scholarship committee, and was its president between 2014 and 2015.”
In Springs, Ms. Lawry was a docent on summer weekends at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, and she supported the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons — her cat, Strawberry, was an ARF adoptee — and the Clamshell Foundation, whose July Fourth fireworks over Three Mile Harbor she loved to see, Ms. Eisenhardt said.
Also among her loves were “reading at the beach at Two Mile Hollow, the East Hampton House and Garden Tour, cooking local food that she bought at the East Hampton Farmers Market, and visiting local wineries, like Channing Daughters, with friends.”
Ms. Lawry, who was born on March 6, 1947, the daughter of Richard and Helen Steiner Grosskopf, leaves no survivors. She was cremated.
Donations in Ms. Lawry’s memory can be made to the Animal Rescue Fund, P.O. Box 2616, East Hampton 11937, or to the Clamshell Foundation at P.O. Box 2725 in East Hampton.
