#Black Owned African Wineries

[ausetkmt]

Oct. 7, 2022

FRANSCHHOEK, South Africa — He grew up resenting the scenic winelands near Cape Town, watching his mother toil in the vineyards so that white people could sip their merlots and chardonnays in luxurious cellars.

Yet here was Paul Siguqa on a recent Saturday, swirling a chenin blanc in the airy tasting room he now owned.

What Mr. Siguqa, 41, has accomplished is nothing short of exceptional: The son of a farm laborer, he saved for 15 years to buy, restore and last year open Klein Goederust Boutique Winery, the only fully Black-owned winery in Franschhoek, one of South Africa’s two most prestigious wine valleys.

But his achievement also raises a frustrating question: How is it that, in 2022, in a country that’s 80 percent Black, it’s still remarkable when Black South Africans reach some of society’s top rungs?

For all the progress South Africa has made since the days of the codified racial caste system of apartheid, its democracy remains 28 years young. The nation continues to struggle to shed entrenched inequalities that create a ceiling of sorts for economic success for the masses. There remain vexing racial disparities in wealth and land ownership.

White South Africans make up about 8 percent of the population, yet own 79 percent of privately held farmland, according to an analysis by Johann Kirsten, the director of the Bureau for Economic Research in South Africa. The disparity is even wider in the wine industry. Black people own only about 2.5 percent of the country’s vineyard acreage, according to a report by Vinpro, an industry trade group.

“We inherited nothing,” Mr. Siguqa said. “Because we are first generation, everything starts with us. So the burden’s a lot heavier.”

With charisma and a salesman’s touch — he pitches his personal story with the same flair that he describes his wine — Mr. Siguqa is hoping to help upend that imbalance. And not just in the wine industry.

“If it’s possible for a child of an uneducated farm laborer to be a farm owner, then it’s possible for the child of a domestic worker to become a doctor, a scientist and whatever that they want to be,” he said.

On a recent weekend, Mr. Siguqa discussed with a group of African-American visitors how he had come to own his winery, joining the handful of Black wine estate owners who have been pioneers in an industry that is difficult to access without generational wealth.

He told them he had operated on faith and that social mobility was possible, even as Black South Africans still have to battle for economic freedom. And by the time he got to explaining that every Black family had someone like his mother — “a strong Black woman that is a matriarch” — some of his guests were in tears.

“We’re so proud of you,” Jasmine Bowles, one of the teary-eyed guests from Atlanta, told him. “Thank you.”

Growing up in a two-bedroom cottage with his mother and sister on a Franschhoek vineyard about 10 miles from the one he now owns, Mr. Siguqa had considered the wine industry as part of the dead-end future that the apartheid regime had designated for Black people: labor, often backbreaking, in service of white people. Part of his mother’s salary was paid in wine (which Mr. Siguqa said she did not drink), in what was known as the dop system.

His mother, Nomaroma Siguqa, 71, told him that she would be the last generation of their family to work the fields.

“I wanted my kids to have an option and not live the tough life of being restricted to a farm,” Ms. Siguqa said.

So she impressed upon her children the importance of education.

As Mr. Siguqa leaned into his studies, he also revealed his business savvy. Nearing the end of high school, to save money for university, he began buying fruit from area farmers in bulk and selling it at a busy intersection. On the first weekend, he said, he made 875 rand (about $50), more than the 800 rand his mother earned in a month. Business became so brisk, he said, that he hired others to work for him.

It was around this time that Mr. Siguqa’s perspective on the wine industry began to change.

With apartheid over, he worked part time conducting tastings at the winery where he lived. He said he marveled at the sight of affluent Black visitors coming to enjoy the wine. It made him think that maybe there was more in the industry for people like him than hard, low-wage labor.

He resolved then, at 17, to own a winery someday.

After university, he successfully launched a communications company and an events company, all while searching for a wine farm he could afford.

The hunt got serious in 2019 when Mr. Siguqa found a winery selling for 40 million rand ($2.2 million). He asked his friend and winemaker, Rodney Zimba, to visit it. Mr. Zimba, 48, grew up with Mr. Siguqa, their parents laboring alongside each other on the same vineyard.

But when Mr. Zimba visited the winery, he knew it was not going to work because it was off the beaten path and difficult to find.

“We’re literally children of farm laborers, and I want people to see us,” Mr. Zimba said.

So he urged Mr. Siguqa to go with another property. It was smaller (24 acres), cheaper (12 million rand) and directly on the main road about five minutes outside of Franschhoek.

The only problem? It was dilapidated.

Still, Mr. Siguqa heeded Mr. Zimba’s advice and bought the property with cash in 2019. Mr. Zimba quit his job at an established winery to help lead the rehabilitation project and to become Mr. Siguqa’s winemaker.

“I think this is a legacy that we’re building here,” Mr. Zimba said.

Two years and 23 million rand ($1.3 million) worth of renovations later, Mr. Siguqa opened his winery on Dec. 3 of last year. It offers five varieties, including a shiraz, a cabernet-merlot blend and a dessert wine.

He said he kept the original name, Klein Goederust, established in 1905, because he knows the psychology of his country. Consumers might associate a brand named Siguqa Wine with lower quality because of the African name, he said.

“Apartheid did a heavy one on us mentally,” he said.

Still, his winery is imbued with his heritage.

A relatively small operation, it has an intimate feel with two rustic, brilliant white Cape Dutch buildings — a tasting room and a restaurant — surrounded by 16 acres of vines. What once was a horse stable and repository for the cheap wine given to laborers has been converted into a haute bar with a glass top.

To the Klein Goederust seal, Mr. Siguqa has added a rain bird, a reference to his clan name. His signature wine, a sparkling brut, is named after his mother — the Nomaroma Method Cap Classic.

“I’m extremely happy and proud,” Ms. Siguqa said — though she also has high expectations. She once told her son that the color of the brut was off and that he needed to keep working on it because Black people are judged harshly.

“My experience has taught me that everything needs to be a certain way,” she said. “It needs to be perfect every time.”

That sentiment has not been lost on Mr. Siguqa, who said he wanted to establish his wine business as premium from the outset because “as Black people, already there’s doubt to say, ‘Do these guys know what they are doing?’”

An employee recently told him it would take eight to 10 weeks for labels for the sparkling brut to arrive, but that she could get them quicker from elsewhere.

“No, it’s not going to be the same,” he told her. “We can’t compromise on quality.”

He already appears to be influencing the next generation of potential winemakers.

Sidima Ganjana, 23, who is from a township in the winelands, also grew up thinking the only thing the wine industry offered Black people like him was hard labor. But then he discovered an academy that trains disadvantaged youth in the wine sector, and he read an article about Mr. Siguqa. He wanted to learn how a Black man was able to buy a patch of earth that seemed to be the preserve of white people, so he went to the vineyard and asked to intern there.

“I don’t feel to him like it’s a business,” Mr. Ganjana said. “It seems like it’s something bigger.”

As Mr. Siguqa strolled his farm, he pointed to the plot where he planned to build a production facility to make his wines (currently, he rents out other wineries’ facilities) and to where a 20-room hotel would go.

Then he pointed over the wire fence at the back of his property, toward a cluster of tightly packed tin shacks near the foot of a grand mountain. It was Langrug, an informal settlement for Black workers who tend the vineyards.

Someone once suggested planting trees along his property line to block the view of the settlement, but Mr. Siguqa said he couldn’t do that. Because that divide between the largely white wine estates and Black labor is his history, and still the present for many.

“It’s a reminder of inequality,” he said. “It’s a constant reminder of how far we must still go as a country.”

[fireliit]

LOGAN, THIRTY-ONE, CST; SHE/THEY. | if you’re hearing COMING HOME by BRIDGES playing, you have to know KAREEM SALAAM (HE/HIM; CIS MAN) is near by! the THIRTY-SEVEN year old MUSEUM CURATOR has been in denver for, like, SIX MONTHS. they’re known to be quite FICKLE, but being FREE-THINKING seems to balance that out. or maybe it’s the fact that they resemble YAHYA ABDUL-MATEEN II. personally, i’d love to know more about them seeing as how they’ve got those PERFECTIONISM THAT IS ALWAYS BEING FINE-TUNED AND REWORKED LIKE A MOLD OF CLAY, A GLASS OF CURATED WINE WHILE READING CLIVE BELL FOR THE THOUSANDTH TIME, FRENCH PRESS COFFEE WITH A SPLASH OF CONDENSED MILK vibes. and maybe i’ll get my chance if i hang out around the CHERRY CREEK long enough!

Full profile under the cut! APPLICABLE TRIGGER WARNINGS: brief mentions of death by helicopter accident and natural causes

STATS Full Name: Kareem Arash Salaam Nickname(s): None Occupation: Museum curator at Denver Art Museum Age: Thirty-seven Date of Birth: July 22nd, 1986 Ethnicity/Race: Black, West Indian, African-Caribbean Gender & Pronouns: Cis man | he/him Orientation: Bisexual Height: 193 cm / 6’3” Tattoo(s): None Piercing(s): None Birthplace: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA Current Residence: Denver, Colorado Languages: English (fluent), French (fluent) Social Class: Upper middle class Notable Family Members: Jahmal Salaam (father, deceased), Abigail Salaam (mother), Hamaad Salaam (paternal grandfather, deceased) Traits: Honorable, creative, free-thinking, philosophical, inventive, fickle, snooty and petty MBTI: ISTP - The Virtuoso Eanneatype: Type 3 - The Achiever Moral Alignment: True Neutral Temperament: Phlegmatic Intelligence Type: Spatial, existential Astrology: Cancer sun, Aquarius moon, Capricorn ascending Habits: Glancing at watch, tapping his foot, rubbing chin, tunes boring people out, over-organized, snores when sleeping, turns almost everything into a project, raising eyebrows, often stands with hands behind his back Hobbies: Metalcrafting, wood-working, resin molding, anything art-related, visiting wineries, art journaling, visiting restaurants and giving scorching reviews on social media, reading Likes: Charcuterie boards, cured meats, philosophical debate, questioning existence and other people's poor choices, candles, pastries Dislikes: The fog, cake that's too sweet, flying on airplanes, people trying to give him nicknames, being cold, clutter BIOGRAPHY His father was a hero. That’s what others would tell Kareem when they recounted how his father died in a helicopter accident as an EMSA pilot during a vicious hurricane.  

But Kareem wasn't ever interested in chasing after his father's legacy, in flying that close to the sun, keeping his feet planted firmly on the ground from a young age. 

As the result of his father passing and his mother being away from home a lot working, he was raised primarily by a no-nonsense paternal grandfather starting from the age of seven. His grandfather instilled in him high values and expectations and, as a result, Kareem always has held himself to high standards and views the world with a critical gaze. 

Through his observations from his youth, Kareem adopted his own code of conduct. He doesn’t just hold himself to this code, but also the people around him, and as a result, he has alienated more people than not. This suits Kareem just fine as he preferred to have a smaller, curated circle of friends. 

Incredibly cutthroat and unafraid to sever ties, Kareem spent most of his time exploring the world through nature, philosophy, and art. Often found with a book in hand, in a lot of ways, George Dickie, Walter Kaufmann, and Ted Cohen were his most steady companions growing up. 

While he finds plenty of faults in people and the world around him, Kareem also has a fascination with the beauty of the imperfections that exist in every corner, leading him to follow a passion for the arts. Graduating from high school in his hometown of New Orleans, Kareem went on to get his bachelor’s in Museum Studies from New York Univeristy.

It is during this time that he meets Kassandra Yung, his first love. After a period of pining, the two of them began to date, only calling it quits upon graduation. Kassandra was going back to her home, and Kareem needed to move onto graduate school, and the two of them split after deciding not to try and make the relationship work long distance. For awhile, they still exchanged letters until contact dwindled.

Career-focused, Kareem went to John Hopkins University for his graduate studies, and after he had completed the program, he served his internship at the Dallas Museum of Art.  

Kareem spent the better part of the next decade hopping around the southern United States and leaving his footprint in various museums with his hand-picked exhibits. During this time, it wasn’t only art pieces that he left behind, but also broken hearts. Never settling down for long. 

Kareem dabbles in creating art pieces of his own every now and then, preferring woodworking and metal crafting to any other art styles, but he mostly loves to pick art pieces to hang not just in his home, but in local museums as a museum curator. 

After the passing of his grandfather last year, Kareem decided to spread his wings and relocate to Denver, Colorado to help nurture the vibrantly growing art scene there.

Throughout all of his moves, Kareem never once has taken flight, traveling cross-country by car with a moving van following behind him. Accommodating to the cooler weather has been difficult for him and he dreads the upcoming summer, but it is a price he is willing to pay for the rich culture that he has found in Denver, specifically in the River North Art District where he works. 

[sinceileftyoublog]

Fatoumata Diawara Live Preview: 10/6, City Winery, Chicago

BY JORDAN MAINZER

You'd think that an album cheekily titled London Ko (a play on the Malian capital of Bamako) might evenly place Fatoumata Diawara's singing and electric guitar playing alongside her notable cast of collaborators. Yet, the singer-songwriter's fifth album (3ème Bureau/Wagram Music), her finest yet, is as personal as it is a showcase for her band and featured contemporaries. Yes, six of the album's fourteen tracks were co-produced with Damon Albarn, and Diawara's mix of falsetto vibrato and smoky baritone nestles comfortably within the confines of everyone from the Brooklyn Youth Chorus to the soulful breaths of Angie Stone. But it's Diawara's poignant diatribes and life-affirming tributes that make the album stand out.

London Ko is primarily an album of uplift. "Somaw" and "Mogokan" are sweet tributes to family and brotherhood. The former looks back at Diawara's move from Bamako to France, featuring finger-snapped percussion built around acoustic guitar arpeggios and staccato piano. The latter, which features Ghanaian rapper M. Anifest, sports hip hop rhythms and drum fills and gospel-inflected keyboards. In fact, Diawara bolsters her influences throughout the record, emphatically journeying through Black music all over the world. From the house piano of "Massa Den" and dub of "Dambe" to the West African blues of "Dakan" and the funk of "Tolon", Diawara centers the declaration to "Let us unite and be one." Perhaps most thrilling is "Blues", featuring Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca, his trills dancing atop forward-charging drums.

But as celebratory as London Ko often sounds and is, it does its fair share of mourning, too. On "Sete", like on Fatou's "Boloko", Diawara decries the practice of FGM, this time atop mournful keys and bluesy guitars. The forceful "Yada" sees her proclaim her worth, perhaps in contrast to a rich man, blistering guitar solos and fried keyboards carrying her singing. These songs are reminders that, to Diawara, making music--especially as a Malian woman playing guitar--is as much a political act as an artistically fulfilling one, never taking for granted the power of her own voice.

Diawara plays tonight at City Winery. Tickets are still available at time of publication. Doors at 6:00 P.M., show at 8:00 P.M.

[wgytravel]

The 50 Best Places to Travel in 2023

With much of the world reopened, 2023 is shaping up to be the year travel officially bounces back. We made our list of the 50 best destinations for 2023 a little differently this year: We asked Travel + Leisure’s editors where they want to go in the months ahead. Some are raring to get back to Japan, while others have the Trans-Bhutan Trail on their lists. Still more are planning a sail around Greenland, a wine-tasting trip on California’s central coast, and a visit to France’s next big wine region (which is, as it happens, tiny).

A few up-and-coming culinary destinations made our list, as did a remarkable piece of art, the size and scale of which boggles the imagination. While many of the team’s picks are remote, breathe-in-that-fresh-air kinds of places, our list doesn’t skimp on cities where the hustle and bustle is part of the fun.

But with so many choices now back on the map, there are as many styles of trips as there are places to explore. That’s why, for the first time in recent memory, we’ve broken our list of best places to go into categories.

The hope is that, whatever it is you’re after in the year ahead, you’ll find it in one of these 50 places. And who knows? We may just see you there.

For Cultural Riches Alexandria, Virginia

With postcard-perfect cobblestone streets and quick access to the wineries of northern Virginia, Alexandria is an easy city to love. But these days, the reason to go is to see how effectively the city is confronting its own history, as destinations across the American South grapple with the legacy of the Confederacy. Alexandria, which was founded as a tobacco port in 1749, was for decades of the 19th century the site of the country’s largest domestic slave trade. Today, the Freedom House Museum has three new exhibitions honoring the people who were forcibly brought here. Meanwhile, the African American Heritage Trail, which opened in 2020, follows the Potomac River and encompasses nearly 200 years of history at 11 stops, such as the Torpedo Factory, where many Black men and women worked during World War II. An extension of the route will debut in February 2023 with 20 new stops, including Waterfront Park, the port from which enslaved people were trafficked to places like New Orleans. At Jones Point Park, visitors can learn about Benjamin Banneker, an inventor, mathematician, and free African American from Maryland who was instrumental in the 1791 surveying team that determined the border of the new U.S. capital of Washington, D.C. (For an even deeper look at the city’s Black experience, book with Manumission Tours, which is run by a fourth-generation Alexandrian.) The city’s most elegant stay is Morrison House Old Town Alexandria, Autograph Collection, which was recently voted one of the best city hotels in the continental U.S. in T+L’s 2022 World’s Best Awards. A new Hotel AKA is slated to open in Old Town in winter 2023

Cairo and the Nile

It’s almost here: After more than a decade of construction — to say nothing of the hype — the Grand Egyptian Museum may finally open, just a stone’s throw from the Great Pyramids of Giza, this spring. What to expect? More than 1 million square feet of exhibition space, treasures including a 40-foot-high statue of Ramses II, outdoor gardens, and an expansive plaza from which visitors can take in the desert surroundings. Meanwhile, a number of new and luxurious ships have started sailing the Nile: Among the best choices are the Viking Osiris, an all-veranda vessel carrying 82 passengers, and the opulent Sphinx from Uniworld Boutique River Cruises, which has 42 cabins swathed in marble and hand-carved wood, with beds dressed in fine Egyptian cotton sheets. The hotel scene is also, thankfully, getting a refresh with a new Mandarin Oriental slated for downtown Cairo in 2024; the forthcoming 200-room Four Seasons Hotel Luxor is scheduled to debut in 2025 — not that you should wait that long to see the ancient Valley of the Kings

City,” Nevada

Even in a state known for its vast, empty landscapes, Basin and Range National Monument, about a two-hour drive north of Las Vegas, takes “remote” to a new level. The 704,000-acre preserve, created in 2015, provides endless opportunities for hiking, climbing, camping, and cycling; its desert valleys and mountain ranges are also dotted with Indigenous rock art sites. But the reason to go now is “City,” the single largest contemporary artwork in the world, which opened to visitors in September 2022. Made from dirt, rock, and concrete, the monumental open-air sculpture was more than 50 years in the making, a collection of mounds, depressions, and stelae conceived by the artist Michael Heizer. The endeavor — which was made possible by joint contributions from art institutions around the country, including LACMA and MoMA — will open to the public for the 2023 season by reservation only. The mile-and-a-half-long sculpture feels at once ancient and futuristic, a destination just as awe-inspiring as the natural one surrounding it

Read Full Blog About Best Places to Travel in 2023 please visit our website now: https://www.wgytravel.com/

[starqueen87]

Hello Good People!

I hope all is well with you all...I was doing some late night reading and I was reading about The Woburn Winery. It was the first black owned winery in the United States.

[arcticdementor]

In the third decade of the 21st century, the Social Register still exists, there are still debutante balls, polo and lacrosse are still patrician sports, and old money families still summer at Newport. But these are fossil relics of an older class system. The rising ruling class in America is found in every major city in every region. Membership in it depends on having the right diplomas—and the right beliefs.

To observers of the American class system in the 21st century, the common conflation of social class with income is a source of amusement as well as frustration. Depending on how you slice and dice the population, you can come up with as many income classes as you like—four classes with 25%, or the 99% against the 1%, or the 99.99% against the 0.01%. In the United States, as in most advanced societies, class tends to be a compound of income, wealth, education, ethnicity, religion, and race, in various proportions. There has never been a society in which the ruling class consisted merely of a basket of random rich people.

Progressives who equate class with money naturally fall into the mistake of thinking you can reduce class differences by sending lower-income people cash—in the form of a universal basic income, for example. Meanwhile, populists on the right tend to imagine that the United States was much more egalitarian, within the white majority itself, than it really was, whether in the 1950s or the 1850s.

Both sides miss the real story of the evolution of the American class system in the last half century toward the consolidation of a national ruling class—a development which is unprecedented in U.S. history. That’s because, from the American Revolution until the late 20th century, the American elite was divided among regional oligarchies. It is only in the last generation that these regional patriciates have been absorbed into a single, increasingly homogeneous national oligarchy, with the same accent, manners, values, and educational backgrounds from Boston to Austin and San Francisco to New York and Atlanta. This is a truly epochal development.

In living memory, every major city in the United States had its own old money families with their own clubs and their own rituals and their own social and economic networks. Often the money was not very old, going back to a real estate killing or a mining fortune or an oil strike a generation or two before. Even so, the heirs and heiresses set themselves up as a local aristocracy. Like other aristocracies, these urban patricians renewed their bloodlines and bank accounts by admitting new money, once the parvenus had served probation and assimilated the values of the local patriciate.

…

In short, for two centuries there was a double competition among regional American oligarchies. On the one hand, the local notables, particularly those from the newly settled regions, had to prove they were not backward bumpkins, but were just as up-to-date with regard to European fashions as the patricians in New York and Boston and Philadelphia. On the other hand, some of them dreamed that the city they ran, whether it was Atlanta or Milwaukee, would become the Athens or Renaissance Florence of North America, and favored local writers, poets, and artists, as long as their work was in fashionable styles and did not inspire seditious thoughts among the local masses. The subnational blocs of New Englanders, Southerners, and Midwesterners fought to control the federal government in order to promote their regional economic interests.

The status of Harvard and Yale as prestigious national rather than regional universities is relatively recent. A few generations ago, it was assumed that the sons of the local gentry (this was before coeducation began in the 1960s and 1970s) would remain in the area and rise to high office in local and state business, politics, and philanthropy—goals that were best served if they attended a local elite college and joined the right fraternity, rather than being educated in some other part of the country. College was about upper-class socialization, not learning, which is why parochial patricians favored regional colleges and universities. If your family was in the local social register, that was much more important than whether you went to an Ivy League college or a local college or no college at all.

American patricians of earlier generations would have been surprised that rich people, many of them celebrities, would scheme and bribe university officers to get their children into a few top universities. Scheming to get into the right local “society” club—now that would have made sense.

Upper-class women were the chief enforcers of local “society.” Anybody who thinks that women are somehow naturally more generous and egalitarian than men has never encountered a doyenne of high society. Mrs. Astor’s 400 families in New York had their counterparts throughout the United States, from the Mainline elite in Philadelphia to the Highland Park set in Dallas.

…

The egalitarianism of the American frontier is greatly exaggerated. Some of the myth comes from European tourists like Alexis de Tocqueville, Harriet Martineau, and Dickens. For ideological reasons or just for entertainment, they played up how classless and vulgar Americans were for audiences back in Europe. On their trips they mostly encountered the wealthy and educated, who might have been informal by the standards of British dukes or French royalty, but who were hardly yeoman farmers. If these famous tourists had spent their time in slave cabins, immigrant tenements, miners camps, and cowboy bunkhouses, they might have gotten a different sense of how egalitarian America actually was. Elite Americans might have been more likely than elite Brits to smile politely when dealing with working-class people, but they were no more likely to welcome them into the family.

…

White poverty in the United States today is concentrated in greater Appalachia, because the Scots Irish settlers, often illiterate squatters, were priced out of other areas and ended up in the hills of Appalachia, the Ozarks, and the Texas Hill Country. As soon as the affluent discover the scenic views in those areas, they will be forced to move once more, just as old-stock families are already being priced out of the Texas Hill Country by rich refugees from California, bringing with them their cultural heritage of trophy wineries and boutiques, New Age spirituality and organic cuisines.

…

In short, a historical narrative which describes a fall from the yeoman democracy of an imagined American past to the plutocracy and technocracy of today is fundamentally wrong. While American society was not formally aristocratic it was hierarchical and class-ridden from the beginning—not to mention racist and ethnically biased. What’s new today is that these highly exclusive local urban patriciates are in the process of being absorbed into the first truly national ruling class in American history—which is a good thing in some ways, and a bad thing in others.

Compared with previous American elites, the emerging American oligarchy is open and meritocratic and free of most glaring forms of racial and ethnic bias. As recently as the 1970s, an acquaintance of mine who worked for a major Northeastern bank had to disguise the fact of his Irish ancestry from the bank’s WASP partners. No longer. Elite banks and businesses are desperate to prove their commitment to diversity. At the moment Wall Street and Silicon Valley are disproportionately white and Asian American, but this reflects the relatively low socioeconomic status of many Black and Hispanic Americans, a status shared by the Scots Irish white poor in greater Appalachia (who are left out of “diversity and inclusion” efforts because of their “white privilege”). Immigrants from Africa and South America (as opposed to Mexico and Central America) tend to be from professional class backgrounds and to be better educated and more affluent than white Americans on average—which explains why Harvard uses rich African immigrants to meet its informal Black quota, although the purpose of affirmative action was supposed to be to help the American descendants of slaves (ADOS). According to Pew, the richest groups in the United States by religion are Episcopalian, Jewish, and Hindu (wealthy “seculars” may be disproportionately East Asian American, though the data on this point is not clear).

Membership in the multiracial, post-ethnic national overclass depends chiefly on graduation with a diploma—preferably a graduate or professional degree—from an Ivy League school or a selective state university, which makes the Ivy League the new social register. But a diploma from the Ivy League or a top-ranked state university by itself is not sufficient for admission to the new national overclass. Like all ruling classes, the new American overclass uses cues like dialect, religion, and values to distinguish insiders from outsiders.

Dialect. You may have been at the top of your class in Harvard business school, but if you pronounce thirty-third “toidy-toid” or have a Southern drawl, you might consider speech therapy.

Religion. You may have edited the Yale Law Review, but if you tell interviewers that you recently accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior, or fondle a rosary during the interview, don’t expect a job at a prestige firm.

Values. This is the trickiest test, because the ruling class is constantly changing its shibboleths—in order to distinguish true members of the inner circle from vulgar impostors who are trying to break into the elite. A decade ago, as a member of the American overclass you could get away with saying, along with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, but I strongly support civil unions for gay men and lesbians.” In 2020 you are expected to say, “I strongly support trans rights.” You will flunk the interview if you start going on about civil unions.

More and more Americans are figuring out that “wokeness” functions in the new, centralized American elite as a device to exclude working-class Americans of all races, along with backward remnants of the old regional elites. In effect, the new national oligarchy changes the codes and the passwords every six months or so, and notifies its members through the universities and the prestige media and Twitter. America’s working-class majority of all races pays far less attention than the elite to the media, and is highly unlikely to have a kid at Harvard or Yale to clue them in. And non-college-educated Americans spend very little time on Facebook and Twitter, the latter of which they are unlikely to be able to identify—which, among other things, proves the idiocy of the “Russiagate” theory that Vladimir Putin brainwashed white working-class Americans into voting for Trump by memes in social media which they are the least likely American voters to see.

Constantly replacing old terms with new terms known only to the oligarchs is a brilliant strategy of social exclusion. The rationale is supposed to be that this shows greater respect for particular groups. But there was no grassroots working-class movement among Black Americans demanding the use of “enslaved persons” instead of “slaves” and the overwhelming majority of Americans of Latin American descent—a wildly homogenizing category created by the U.S. Census Bureau—reject the weird term “Latinx.” Woke speech is simply a ruling-class dialect, which must be updated frequently to keep the lower orders from breaking the code and successfully imitating their betters.

Mrs. Astor would approve.

[prohibitionprincesses]

Deliver Us 

The Bronx, New York 

Those who don't know her very well tend to assume that Miriam Levi must be another one of those Temperance zealots, given that she's a female champion for social justice yet also very religious. They would be wrong. 

It’s true that in the 1920s, the most dedicated Prohibitionists tend to be female and devout Protestants; but Catholics and Jews still use sacramental wine--legally. Along with "medical" alcohol (yes, really), religious wineries are now among the only legal producers of liquor in the United States. Naturally, this loophole is exploited by bootleggers, such as Miriam and Aaron's black sheep brother Moshe, a high ranking member of the Jewish Mafia. While Mo kills and cuts deals with Irish and Italian gangsters, Miriam and Aaron are trying to work their way out of poverty honestly. They were born to immigrants in the Bronx, and hope to join the wave of second-generation Jews who are moving to different parts of the Big Apple and into the middle class. If Miri and Aaron really get lucky and save enough money, they may even get to visit their own little Promise Land, up in the Borscht Belt. Mo and his croonies already live a lavish Roaring Twenties life in Manhattan, bought on booze and what Miri calls "blood money." Aaron has given up on him; Mirim continues trying to reach Mo, but he'll have none of it. Mo also indulges in the casual racism of the era, and won't join Miriam on the ahead-of-one's-time wagon.   Until one day when, seemingly out of the blue, Mo changes. He goes from sharing drinks with a corrupt cop to accidentally killing the officer, when the latter begins savagely beating an elderly Colored man on the Manhattan Bridge, and Mo intervenes. Mo flees New York, and his siblings don't see or hear of him for a couple years. Miri's spirituality takes another blow in 1925 from the famous Monkey Trial; the idea of faith and science coexisting is still a relatively new concept. However, Miriam's her faith gets a boost when their estranged brother finally Moshe returns to New York, now a philanthropist and police informant married to an African American woman. With some (legitimate) social connections through Mo, Miri and Aaron get better paying jobs, and the following spring the entire family is celebrating Passover in the Catskills. A fellow vacationer comments, "So you three siblings are Miriam, Aaron and Moshe, and Mo's married to a woman named Tzipporah? Did you all plan that, or did that just happen by mistake?" "Yeah that was weird, wasn't it." AN: This was a tricky A.U. to cook up. I didn't want to re-write the tale of Passover in the Roaring Twenties, though that would admittedly make a pretty awesome stage musical. I also didn't know what to do about the character's background, since no one religion has a copyright on Exodus, and ethnic groups involved don't cleanly fit into any modern ones. I ultimately went with Jewish immigrants, since it fit closely enough with the characters' arcs in the story (poverty and oppression; one odd Jew out living a corrupt decadent career; hypocritical racism, deliverance, and a sunny Promise Land not too far away.) And Jews do have an entire holiday revolving around the story. The outfit: I really love the first version of this picture, but it's just not 1920s. It's a great 1930s or '40s Miriam, though. The new dress I gave Miriam this time around is based on day dresses and tea dresses, with low ruffled skirts. Her overall look is inspired by Margaret Shroeder from "Boardwalk Empire." Of course, with 1920s makeup being so Egypt inspired, Miriam already has a very '20s look to her face. The background was horrifying to make. You might think that simplistic clipart of stylized Seder plates and Gatsby-styled line work would be easy to find. You'd be wrong. I had to build this entire background from clipart and shape tools, and it only looks decent from afar. Abstraction is not my area.

UPDATE: I have tweaked some details. 

[seizasa-a]

HEADCANONS   —— —   INDRA OTSUTSUKI .

(   MODERN VERSE   )

• Currently owns six cars: a silver 1955 Mercedes Benz, a maroon 1953 Buick Skylark, a black 1959 BMW 507, a black 1969 Boss 429 Mustang, a blue 1966 Shelby 427 Cobra, and a grey 1961 Jaguar E-Type.

• Does not have a preference amoung his cars and will drive them all randomly.

• Owns five snakes in total, but his most beloved is a fourteen-foot-long anery boa constrictor named Shesha. She has an entire enclosure to herself acting as the centre piece to the mansion's foyer.

• The other four are kept in terrariums located in the sunroom Indra had added to the mansion specifically for his snakes. They are, in no particular order: Cleopatra, an orange-headed Sumatran short-tail python; Seire, a European viper; Sytry, a red bush viper; and Qetsiyah, a South African puff adder.

• Smokes from a kiseru, inside which is hidden a small dagger.

• Often walks with a decorated cane, which also hides a blade inside of it.

• Lives in a literal mansion formally known as the Otsutsuki Estate, complete with a team of armed and dedicated domestic servants, a lavish garden tended to daily, and a basement containing both a wine cellar and a dungeon.

• Frequently hosts soirees of various themes at his residence. This is to repair some of the damage to the Otsutsuki name in bygone years, as well as to keep an eye on any new faces that appear in town.

• Has a concealed carry permit and carries a handgun with him at all times.

• His winery, called the Divine Winery, features vintage barware in mint condition and various of his own artwork, most of it abstract in design.

• His paintings can also be found hung around his home, but he has an entire studio dedicated to his artwork.

• War veteran.

• Has six tomoe tattoos along his collarbone, three on each side with the tails facing inward. This tattoo signifies a member of the Otsutsuki Mafia, given to family members who choose to join on their eighteenth birthdays.

• His left leg has a limp from a war injury, which is why he uses a cane to walk. He also has a scar down the right side of his face that blinded him in one eye. He normally keeps it covered with his hair.

• He wears several pieces of jewelry at any given time, but one accessory that he will never be found without is the ring bearing the Otsutsuki crest he wears on his left middle finger. It signifies his position as the clan head.

• Experiences psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) as a result of his war-induced PTSD.

[noladrinks]

New from https://noladrinks.com/broadcast/noladrinks-show-livermore-valley-wine-jul20ep2/

NOLADrinks Show – Livermore Valley Wine – Jul20Ep2

On this edition of The NOLADrinks Show with Bryan Dias, we talk about the historic Livermore Valley wine region located in the San Francisco Bay Area. We welcome the Executive Director of the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association, Chris Chandler, and owner/winemaker of Longevity Wines and President of the Association of African American Vintners, Phil Long.

Pictured above from left – Phil Long, owner/winemaker of Longevity Wines and President of the Association of African American Vintners and Executive Director of the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association, Chris Chandler.

NOLADrinks Show – Livermore Valley Wine – Jul20Ep2

We kick-off the show letting you know what’s up on this episode. We also touch on some covid-19 related topics as it relates to the hospitality industry.

Then, we have our featured interview with Chris Chandler, Executive Director of the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association, and Phil Long, owner/winemaker of Longevity Wines. Phil is also the President of the Association of African American Vintners.

We discuss the historic Livermore Valley wine region located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Found northeast of San Jose and southeast of Oakland, this special viticultural area has been in the winemaking game since the first half of the 19th century. Chris gives us a brief overview of the region’s history.

Phil and Chris let us know about the terroir and some of the varietals that thrive in the area. This includes many winegrapes that have come into their own in the Livermore Valley in recent years. Of course, we sample some terrific expressions from the region. Phil lets us know about his program at Longevity Wines, as well.

Pictured above – Delicious Livermore Valley Wines tasted for this episode.

Both Chris and Phil stick around for our exclusive podcast-only segment, “Another Shot with NOLADrinks.” We discuss inclusivity in the wine industry including noting the growing numbers of female winemakers in the valley.

Phil, who is one of only a few black winery owners and winemakers, discusses this. Importantly, he lets us know about his involvement in the Association of African American Vintners. Serving as the organization’s current president, he tells us about some of the critical work they do promoting diversity across all aspects of the wine industry.

We close things out with “Parting Shot” on doing your part and taking individual responsibility in a covid world and some thoughts on enforcement connected to the hospitality industry.

The map below shows the location of the Livermore Valley appellation. You can subscribe to, stream, and download The NOLADrinks Show with Bryan Dias podcast using the links and player at the top of the post.

Cheers and Be Well, You All!

~ Bryan

Fetching directions......

Reset directions Print directions

[seizasa]

(   MODERN VERSE   )

Currently owns six cars: a silver 1955 Mercedes Benz, a maroon 1953 Buick Skylark, a black 1959 BMW 507, a black 1969 Boss 429 Mustang, a blue 1966 Shelby 427 Cobra, and a grey 1961 Jaguar E-Type.

Does not have a preference amoung his cars and will drive them all randomly.

Owns five snakes in total, but his most beloved is a fourteen-foot-long anery boa constrictor named Shesha. She has an entire enclosure to herself acting as the centre piece to the mansion’s foyer.

The other four are kept in terrariums located in the sunroom Indra had added to the mansion specifically for his snakes. They are, in no particular order: Cleopatra, an orange-headed Sumatran short-tail python; Seire, a European viper; Sytry, a red bush viper; and Qetsiyah, a South African puff adder.

Smokes from a kiseru, inside which is hidden a small dagger.

Often walks with a decorated cane, which also hides a blade inside of it.

Lives in a literal mansion formally known as the Otsutsuki Estate, complete with a team of armed and dedicated domestic servants, a lavish garden tended to daily, and a basement containing both a wine cellar and a dungeon.

Frequently hosts soirees of various themes at his residence. This is to repair some of the damage to the Otsutsuki name in bygone years, as well as to keep an eye on any new faces that appear in town.

Has a concealed carry permit and carries a handgun with him at all times.

His winery, called the Divine Winery, features vintage barware in mint condition and various of his own artwork, most of it abstract in design.

His paintings can also be found hung around his home, but he has an entire studio dedicated to his artwork.

War veteran.

Has six tomoe tattoos along his collarbone, three on each side with the tails facing inward. This tattoo signifies a member of the Otsutsuki Mafia, given to family members who choose to join on their eighteenth birthdays.

His left leg has a limp from a war injury, which is why he uses a cane to walk. He also has a scar down the right side of his face that blinded him in one eye. He normally keeps it covered with his hair.

He wears several pieces of jewelry at any given time, but one accessory that he will never be found without is the ring bearing the Otsutsuki crest he wears on his left middle finger. It signifies his position as the clan head.

Experiences psychogenic non-epileptic seizures ( PNES ) as a result of his war-induced PTSD.

[ednaduffy91892-blog]

Competing White Supremacist Groups Unite To Combat ‘Ethnicity Battle’.

Moving could be among the absolute most difficult things a person needs to manage. Having said that a lot Elvis may possess "borrowed" coming from dark woes entertainers like "Significant Young Boy" Crudup, "Huge Mother" Thornton, he borrowed zero much less from white colored country stars Ernest Tubb, Expense Monroe as well as white colored pop singers, as well as a lot of his loanings came from the church; its own gospel music was his major music effect and also structure. Really recently artificial lawn comes in various other different colors like blue, red, white, yellow as well as dark; these multicolored artificial lawns may be use for decorative show; where you are actually coordinating an event or some other social event these different colors artificial turf is really useful as well as make the neighboring desirable. Latino guys are six times more likely to overindulge drink than Latina females, as well as African-American men are actually four opportunities most likely to accomplish thus than their female versions. Golf is just one of the main reasons that guy individuals see Scotland. The war expanded and also grew after this and also thousands of younger Americans battled as well as craved their nation. White peonies would certainly likewise be actually beautiful, as will red poppies. Along with $1, Unicef may deliver a little one with tidy, secure water for one month, and along with $15, it can easily give water for a year. While Haitians consisted of a tiny minority of Caribbean migrants to Harlem, McKay's visibility of the terrible effect of the United States infiltration of Haiti highlighted the necesssity for a revitalized counterhegemonic pan-Africanist teamwork. Black Americans are named Black Americans and they are actually well taught likewise. The feuds of White Plume, however, had actually not been confined to the red men; he possessed a lot to state of brushes with hunters, a course of culprits for whom he seemed to treasure a particular abhorrence. This short article gives you pointers for getting one of the most out of checking out wineries in Piedmont's red wine Barolo red or white wine nation, shares four stories of sees along with friendly winery owners and also provides you a short background on the lay of the land and also series of red or white wines. Close-by outing destinations include winery excursions, Mount Lofty with its own strong viewpoint of the Adelaide location, and also the Cleland Animals Park, where you may in fact pet a marsupial or a koala bear. Typically, cleansing franchise business ask for regarding seventy-five dollars per hour to possess two folks tidy for two hours. If you ever before viewed any historical video, you might find that elvis was actually a combination of country and dark r and b songs. 10. The Clean-iX ® Constant Ion Exchange modern technology, after company presentation of Oct 2015. Everything coming from old Korean temples, to beautiful country side viewpoints - such as the Boseong Veggie Tea fields in the southern part of the country - to other huge, municipal cities like Busan. Chinese censors on Sunday removed posts and also postings concerning the vaccine industry as an online protest over the nation's most up-to-date vaccine shame magnified. Yet it would certainly be unjust to the monitoring of Tidy TeQ if our company happen without stating that it is certainly not totally by privileged crash that the business has actually happened this far. A reddish cross on a white background is the Street George flag of England. I have actually visited to Switzerland but it was the summer months opportunity still an attractive country as well as this advised me of the browse through too. Nonetheless, news does not have to apply to a whole entire area, state, or even nation. WASHINGTON-- The Environmental Protection Agency declared programs Thursday to scrap Obama-era regulations firming up stipulations on fingertip of charcoal ash, the toxic by-product from coal-fired power plants that has actually induced major water contaminants complications throughout the country. As quickly as it was actually learned that he was not a United States Negro, all the indicators of indignation disappeared. His popular music was actually intensely determined by African-American blues, Christian gospel, and also Southern country. Each of these individuals is part of a general body of care, and if the system is without cohesion as well as quality control, many individuals will certainly be injured or hurt and also many will definitely die.

[realhousewives-fan]

The Wooden Farm’s Incredible History

This was a short spin-off for Karen Huger, but her family’s history and the symbolism of the farm made it incredibly fascinating.

I loved all the old photographs of the Wooden family.

And when they visited the Historical Society and Museum, we got to learn more about the history of slavery in the area.

In season 4 of RHOP when the women were visiting New Orleans is also one of my favourite girls trips on Real Housewives.

New Orleans is exciting on its own, but the museum they visited about the slavery was such an interesting scene.

Just the fact that the African Americans were first brought into the US around the Surry area was definitely new information to me.

They learned that Karen’s great-great-great grandmother, Anna Wooden, was forced into a relationship with the farm owner.

He never married because of his alcoholism, so the babies Anna had with him came to inherit the farm.

A lot of Karen’s ancestors were listed as properties, and it must be strange having a family tree like that. I couldn’t even imagine how that would feel like.

I actually wished we could’ve focused more on this topic and made the whole spin-off like a classic documentary about the family and the area.

As a contribution to the black history.

But the farm is a symbol of this. It’s what they all are working so hard to keep and pass down to the next generation.

When the next generation wants to turn the farm into a winery farm, Aunt Val is vehemently against the idea though.

And then they suggest an entertainment location, and as they’ve demonstrated with the family reunion party, is possible.

As it turns out, Aunt Val had a will all along and what it contains will remain a mystery. But all is well that ends well, I guess.

Not all spin-offs turn out like Porsha’s Family Matters, because that was a self-sabotage of epic proportions.

But it was also a portrait of what Porsha is: a gaslighting liar.

And this spin-off complements who Karen is: She’s the Grande Dame.

[jalisanwhitley]

GLO’ng up in Portgual

So as usual I’m months late with recaps but I wanted to do a Portugal highlights post while I still remember all the things I loved and ppl inevitably ask for recommendations. 

I went to Lisbon, Porto and Lagos, Portugal with Trova Trip on their hosted trip with Gloria Atanmo from the Blog Abroad. I went strictly off the strength of Glo because I love her personality and following along on her travels through social media. I’m so happy on went on her trip because 1.) Glo is amazing and so of course wonderful people were attracted to the trip because of her and 2.) I’m sure if I went on any other of their trips it would be all young white people like most other small group tour companies attract. This is no shade to Trova Trip because the co-founders are amazing, funny, and so friendly, but you can tell from the marketing that late-20s/30 something yuppie’s are the target audience. 

With that in mind, I’m sure they were in for a surprise when half of the attendees were black women and you could tell the mismatch between the trip guide (young, fresh out of college, bro-ish character) and the clientele. Despite that, Portugal was beautiful and I definitely plan to go back as a stopover on a trip to Morocco in the future. 

I’m not a beach girl so Lagos didn’t make my highlights, but if you are then this might be right up your alley (think Florida, laidback, beaches, water...lots of older white folks). 

MY PORTUGAL TOP 5:

1. Doing a Wine Tour in the Duoro Valley

Despite my best attempts, my palette will never progress beyond Moscato (judge your mom), but I don’t let that keep me away from a good wine tour. I think wineries are gorgeous and the wineries in the Duoro Valley didn’t disappoint. You can get to the Duoro Valley from Porto which is worth staying in for 2 days in its own right. It felt like a smaller, more laidback version of Libson and is equally as beautiful. 

We went to three different port wineries and the port at each tasted completely different so if you’re in the Duoro Valley try as many as possible to find the one you liked. My favorite ended up being Fonseca Wineries. 

2. Visiting Lisbon During the World Cup

A lot of this couldn’t be pre-planned but we were in Portugal while they were playing in the World Cup and this made it a one in a life time experience. Portugal shuts down for the World Cup. No games are played. There are crowds of hundreds watching the games in public parks with large screens every day and the energy is on another level. 

Even if you don’t go during the World Cup but you’re a sports fan, or just a foodie who doesn’t like making decision, go to Time Out Market in Lisbon. There are 15+ different food vendors and they have a big screen TV. There was one guy at the table next to us who was very passionate about his team and brought a whole 5 foot flag along to rep his set. 

3. Visiting Sintra

Yes, it’s touristy but its a must do. Tripadvisor will tell you so. Your aunt and uncle who went last year will tell you so. And now I’m telling you to. Pena Palace really does look like Disneyland and the architecture at Quinta Regaleira of Sintra is absolutely beautiful. The town itself is also really quaint so I would definitely plan to spend a full day. 

BRING WALKING SHOES AND WATER. There is so so much walking. To be fair there are buses and hop-on, hop-off buses and Airbnb even has experience trips to the area. But I wanted to Wonder Woman and hike to the top of Pena Palace and BAY-BEE. When I tell you my soul left my body no less than 3 times on the way up.  That is a real life hike. 

4. Our apartment in Lisbon

We stayed in Almaria - Ex Libris Apartments and if you know me, you know i’m a bibliophile so the fact that these apartments were book themed gave me EVERY-THING. 

Beyond how well designed the whole place is, it’s very well-located and there’s rooftop apartments with wonderful views of the city. 

5. The Lisbon African Roots Tour

I did the Airbnb Experience with Naky. If you’re into history, learning about the slave trade outside of the U.S. or just generally want an alternative way to see a lot of the parts of Lisbon that you won’t see on another tours I would recommend it. I learned SO much about the African influence and history in Portugal historically and in the present. With that said, the tour is a marathon. It lasted 5 hours before I tapped out and most folks stayed later on after dinner. 

Honorable Mention: MY BUNS AFTER ALL THAT WALKING.

Only half kidding. Libson in particular is all steep inclines so get your walking shoe game on fleek or you will be embarrassed. I walked the majority of places so by the end of the trip my thighs were burning and you couldn’t tell me I wasn’t an Olympic athlete. 

[monarchwine]

10 BLACK OWNED WINERIES

We are all here because we love wine. We love the sensory experience of drinking a glass of wine, we love traveling to wine country, and we love hearing the stories behind the wine. But like our greater society, the wine world also struggles with diversity and representation in all facets of the business. There are very few black-owned wineries in the US or wines made by the hands of black winemakers. And there are only a small amount of black wine professionals in positions of leadership in wine sales and marketing. This is a layered challenge that is going to take some time and work to dismantle.

While the industry is working to diversify itself, one thing we can do is to buy black-owned wines and support these diverse wineries and vineyards. The wines stand on their own for sure, but the commitment to normalize diversity in the industry is key.

Try and Buy Black-Owned Wines

I encourage you to seek out and try these wines. Some are in distribution and can be found in many retailers, while others need to be purchased on their own websites. In addition, consider joining one of their wine clubs. Wine club income is passive and a great way to support a black-owned business.

In no particular order, here are 10 black owned wineries to try!

Lyons Wine (Emilia-Romagna, Italy)

Chris Lyons is making Lambrusco, a sparkling Italian red wine from the Emilia-Romagna region. This wine is spectacular and is currently available for pre-order on their website. Lambrusco is worth a try if you’ve never had it. It’s extremely food friendly, in fact, try it with some meats and cheeses from the local area: Mortadella, Prosciutto di Parma, and Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Kumusha Wines (Western Cape, South Africa)

I want to start with this wine by painting a picture of South African wine in 2020. Due to COVID, domestic alcohol sales are prohibited and banned indefinitely. The industry is DECIMATED. Exports are still allowed. You can help support South Africa’s wine industry by purchasing SA wines. Kumusha in the Zimbabwean Shona language translates to “your home” or “your origin”. This winery was founded by Tinashe Nyamudoka, an award-winning sommelier. I’m particularly fond of his affordable and crushable Cabernet Sauvignon!

Maison Noir Wines (Willamette Valley, Oregon)

Maison Noir Wines was founded in 2007 with the cool André Hueston Mack at the helm. The brand (and the wines) are exciting, dynamic, and unbuttoned. These aren’t your grandma’s wines! Two of his most popular wines include Other People’s Pinot Noir (O.P.P.) and Love Drunk Rosé, to give you a sense of the vibe André is going for. There is not one ounce of pretension, but it is some good juice. I recently recommended Andre’s wines in an article for HuffPost.

Vision Cellars

Vision Cellars is one of the OG black-owned wineries in California. I first met owner and winemaker, Mac McDonald, at a food & wine pairing dinner in Los Angeles featuring his wines. He showed up in overalls and a straw hat. I was hooked. I then tried his Pinot Noirs and have never looked back.

Theopolis Vineyards (Yorkville Highlands, CA)

Near the border of Mendocino and Sonoma Counties, you will find Theopolis Vineyards, with Theodora Lee at the helm. Theodora: lawyer, partner, and owner/winemaker at Theopolis Vineyards. Her Petite Sirah is a standout and has stacked up more medals than she can count.  I recently recommended Theodora’s wines in an article for HuffPost.

Brown Estate (Napa Valley, CA)

In 1980 Deneen, David, and Coral Brown’s parents purchased an abandoned ranch in the eastern hills of the Napa Valley. They rehabilitated the crumbling homestead and planted viniferous grapes — which for a decade they farmed and sold to local winemakers. In 1995 the kids decided to make their own wine! Their Zinfandel is ripe and juicy, as a Zinfandel should be!

Tympany Vineyards (Sonoma Valley, CA)

Where handcrafted wine and jazz meet! Louis and Lynda Brown planted vines and are handcrafting wine in Healdsburg. I have enjoyed their Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and it is out of this world!

McBride Sisters (California and New Zealand)

For half of their lives, the McBride sisters had never met and didn’t even know that the other existed. They share a father and both thought they were only children. One sister was raised in northern California. And the other was raised in Marlborough, New Zealand. In 2005, the sisters found themselves together in California, fueled by a shared passion for all things wine. In 2010 the McBride Sisters Collection was born. This is the largest black-owned wine company in the US, thanks in part to the popularity of their Black Girl Magic brand.

Angwin Estate Vineyards (Napa Valley, CA)

Jon Larson’s story starts in Angwin, a small town in Napa Valley. He grew up in Angwin and attended Saint Helena High School, but left home to attend college, medical school, and residency. While in training in Las Vegas he met his wife Angela. As they moved around the United States pursuing careers in anesthesia and surgery, they dreamed of the day when they could return to Jon’s home on top of Howell Mountain and produce wine of their own. That they did. Their Cabernet Sauvignon from Howell Mountain is otherworldly. Intense and elegant. It has been described as “power without weight” and I could not agree more.

Aslina Wines (South Africa)

Aslina was launched in 2017 by Ntsiki Biyela, South Africa’s first black female winemaker. Ntsiki left her rural hometown in the Eastern Cape of South Africa to study winemaking at the University of Stellenbosch and has never looked back. Aslina is the name of her grandmother, who was a great influence on her life.

If this doesn’t make you want to try some of these black-owned wineries, I don’t know what will! We can support diversity, equality, and inclusion in the wine industry by supporting these brands.

[wineanddinosaur]

Wine 101: Greek White Wines

This episode of “Wine 101” is sponsored by E. & J. Gallo Winery. At Gallo, we exist to serve enjoyment in moments that matter. The hallmark of our company has always been an unwavering commitment to making quality wine and spirits, Whether it’s getting Barefoot and having a great time, making every day sparkle with La Marca Prosecco, or continuing our legacy with Louis Martini in Napa, we want to welcome new friends to wine and share in all of life’s moments.

Interested in trying some of the wine brands discussed on “Wine 101”? Follow the link in each episode description to purchase featured wines or browse our full portfolio at TheBarrelRoom.com. Cheers, and all the best.

The history of Greek wines is so robust, VinePair’s tastings director Keith Beavers decided to dedicate two separate podcast episodes to it. In this first segment, Greek white wines take center stage.

Beavers gets into the history, varieties, and need-to-know information about Greek white wines available on U.S. shelves. He breaks down several of the varieties that are already popping up in the U.S., including Assyrtiko, Moschofilero, and Malagousia. Plus, there are several regions to be on the lookout for as their wines make their way onto shelves.

Tune in to Episode 3 of the bonus season of “Wine 101” to learn more about Greek white wines.

LISTEN ONLINE

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

OR CHECK OUT THE CONVERSATION HERE

Keith Beavers: My name is Keith Beavers. Does soup actually have a season? When does one soup season end and one soup season begin? Is there, like, a gray area?

What’s going on, wine lovers? Welcome to Episode 3 of VinePair’s “Wine 101” podcast bonus season. My name is Keith Beavers, and I am the tastings director of VinePair. How are you doing? Guys, Greece and Greek wine is so damn cool, we had to put it in two episodes. This is our Greek white wine episode. We’re going to get nice. You’ve got to get into Greek wines. Let’s do it.

Wine lovers, I’ve been in the wine industry for a while — I think like 20 years — and in my time in the wine industry, I’ve seen a couple of things evolve. One was the organic movements of South African wine. But, Greek wine was actually one of those places in the world that I experienced on the American market. I watched the perception change from “Oh. Greek wine? Cool.” to “OH! Greek wine? COOL.” That second perception is what it should always be, because Greek wine is so good. It is shrouded in mystery, and there’s so much awesomeness there. I’ll get into that in a second. There are varieties of wine grapes in Greece that make the most unique wines. These are wines that you can kind of compare to other wines in the world. They do have similarities to other wines in the world. But, they’re so Greek.

Now, this is crazy. The thing about Greek wine grapes is that they’re so old, DNA profiling cannot find the origins of these varieties. There are varieties around the world, specifically in the Mediterranean and mostly in Italy, with names that are either a reference to Greece, or just “Greek” or “Grecco,” because they don’t know the origins of those varieties. The DNA profiling can’t catch it because they’re so old. They assume — because those grapes are so old — that they must be Greek, so they give them Greek names. That’s crazy.

I find it so wild that a place in the world, a culture, a country, is a place with history and antiquity that is so rooted in the vine. Wine was everything to the Greeks. Wine was part of their diet. The grape itself was part of their diet, along with olive oil and bread. They had a god that was dedicated to wine. Dionysus was also dedicated to other things, like hedonism and drama. He was such a big deal that they had an actual festival dedicated to him. On that day, slaves were freed for one day to drink to excess. If you puked, you won. That’s crazy. The Spartans and the Peloponnese would actually wash their newborn babies in wine. Two of the most famous poets of the time, Hession and Homer, used wine for everything in their stories, whether it’s for sacrifice, recreation, or prayer. They even used it to seal the deal for agreements. Of course, it was also used for medicinal or therapeutic purposes. Hephaestus, who made the shield for Achilles in myth, made sure that the shield itself depicted a vineyard that encapsulates human life. Even the Cyclops drank wine, and the dude got drunk. Of course, for the Trojans and Greeks, this was their feast drink. It was the drink for humans. The gods would drink nectar. Humans drank wine.

When the Greeks began to colonize the Mediterranean, they would take vines to places like Sicily and southern Italy, which they called Oenotria. It means “the land under vine.” They were doing some good work there. They also brought vines to the southern part of France and around the Black Sea. Their exports of wine actually went to places like Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. The Egyptians actually drank beer. The Greeks didn’t want the beer, but they were happy to sell wine to the Egyptians. They thought beer was more of a barbarian’s drink. The Greeks also always diluted their wines with water. They thought that if you didn’t do that, you were a savage or a barbarian. There are stories of these characters in myth that take full swigs of undiluted wine and they get so drunk, they fall down and everyone laughs at them. The Greeks would even take the must after fermentation, re-moisten it, and re-trod it with their feet, and make this very simple, low-quality, bubbly wine they called Deuterias, which means “derived from” or “second pressing.” Today, we call that wine piquette. We have an episode on that is coming up in this bonus season.

You’re getting a sense of how important the vine and wine was to the Greeks, right? Yes, it was more of a luxury item for the elite. Yes, some of the lower-quality stuff was for the plebes. StIll, this was such an important part of their culture. It’s just so crazy that today, we are not immersed in Greek wine. We are immersed in French wine. We see the French as the beginning of the quality wine movement. They created the appellation system and all of that stuff. Other great wine was being made around the world, but the French were focused, and so was the world. As the French were building their wine culture, the Greeks were under Ottoman-Turkish rule, so the wine industry couldn’t thrive there because that culture did not drink wine. They allowed it to be sold but not to be consumed. It was very complicated. It’s in the ’60s and ’70s where things begin to change for the modern Greek era. That civil war happened, which messed a lot of stuff up. But, during that time, there was a lot of wine being made on the quantity side rather than the quality side. In the 1980s, a lot of these winemakers that worked for these big companies went out on their own and started doing their own smaller-production wines. That’s where Greek wine started really coming into itself. Today, we’re lucky enough to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and it’s awesome.

So, let’s get you guys familiar with Greek wines so that you can go out there, grab them, and enjoy the hell out of them. They’re there, on shelves, ready for you. There’s more Greek wine on the American market now than there ever has been. There’s more diversity in that market and it’s crazy cool. Let’s get into it. Let’s start with Greek white wine. I would love to get into all the geography, which I will in the next episode. I’d also love to get into all of the appellations, which I really can’t because there’s so many of them. For us to enjoy and understand Greek wine, we should understand the varieties and the wines made from them. Then, we can get into more of the appellation stuff. There are certain varieties that thrive in certain areas, or are from certain areas, but those areas also make wines from other grapes as well. It can get complicated.

Let’s talk about the varieties, because I want you guys to start drinking Greek wine. I want to get you excited about it. There’s quite a long list of white wine varieties in Greece, with a little over a dozen of them made regularly into wine. There’s a handful of those that we’re starting to see on the American market, so it’s very exciting. If you’re into Greek wine, you’ve probably heard of the grape Assyrtiko. We’ll start there. Assyrtiko is the white wine from Greece that we’ve been seeing on our market since the 1980s. Although it’s grown throughout Greece — not everywhere, but throughout — it’s primarily grown on the island of Santorini. Most of us might know Santorini as a great tourist spot in Greece, but it’s also an ancient volcanic island. In the 17th century B.C., that volcano erupted and submerged the majority of the island into the Aegean Sea. It destroyed the Minoan civilization and the civilization of the neighboring larger island, Crete. I know Santorini doesn’t sound very Greek because, at one time, it was ruled by the Venetian empire. It was then named after Saint Irene. Today, it’s called Santorini, but it’s actually officially back to being called Thira. Because of the popularity of this island, its beauty, and its attraction through tourism, the wines of this island are popular on our market. We love to go to Greece. The grape Assyrtiko does very well in the volcanic soils of Santorini. These are volcanic soils that have never seen the phylloxera louse. That’s right. These are all phylloxera-immune vines. Because it’s so windy on this island, vineyards do this thing they used to do back in the day. They train the vines into a basket-like shape so that the vines can produce fruit and not be crushed by the wind. It’s called basket training.

With that volcanic soil and all that wind, what we get are these beautiful, sometimes small-production white wines that are just razor sharp with acidity. They smell like lemons and pears. They go, of course, wonderfully with seafood. Assyrtiko might just be the No. 1 seafood wine in the world. I mean, maybe not. But, man, it’s good. There’s a lot of affordable Assyrtiko on the market out there. If you see Assyrtiko from Santorini that’s a little bit more expensive than usual, give it a try. It’s in a concentrated yield, and they want to show you what this grape can do. It’s worth the spend. We’re talking like $30 to $40.

In any other decade, I would have told you, “That’s it. That’s all the Greek wine we have on our market.” Not today, though. We have other white varieties to talk about. You’re stoked. I can feel it. Of course, Santorini isn’t the only island in the Aegean Sea making wine. There are other islands like Lemnos, Samos, Paros, Rhodes, and Crete. We’re not seeing a lot of those in the American market yet. We are, but it’s just a dabble. So, we’re going to move on for the sake of helping you guys find what’s actually around in abundance. In a central part of the Peloponnese, which is the southern part of the Greek peninsula, there is a wine region called Mantinia. This wine region is where one of my favorite white wines is made. It’s a grape called Moschofilero. It’s a pink-skin grape. It makes these pinkish-toned white wines. You can actually do some skin contact and make a rosé out of it. You’re doing the orange wine thing, but you’re going to make a rosé out of it. The coolest thing about these wines is that they’re crispy and have a ton of acidity, but they’re also a little bit sweet. Imagine drinking a very crisp, very clean, very refreshing Pinot Grigio with a slight note of Moscato sweetness and a hint of a little bit of fizziness on the tongue. They’re awesome wines. If you can find the Moschofilero, grab it. Don’t look back. You’re welcome. These are two of the varieties you’re going to see mostly on the American market. Assyrtiko is basically everywhere and Moschofilero is popping up more.

Beyond that, there’s another white wine grape called Malagousia that is from the northern part of Greece in the Macedonia area. This wine makes really awesome, soft, low-acidity, easy-drinking, concentrated-at-times, white wines. The reason why it’s exciting is because at one time, Malagousia was one of the varieties used to make a white wine from Greece called Retsina. Retsina is a traditional wine made to give an homage to the way wine was made in antiquity, in that the wine is infused with pine resin. Back in the day, when Greek wine was rough, Retsina was rough. You were basically just drinking pine resin. Today, younger winemakers are taking that task and making it a more concentrated, balanced wine. It’s awesome. Malagousia is also being made into single-variety, dry white wine. If you get a chance, you should definitely try it. This is a great seafood wine as well. It also goes well with light meats because it has a little bit of weight to it.

There’s one more island that I want to talk about called Kefalonia. It’s off the western coast of Greece. There is a grape there that’s being grown and made into wine called Robola. It’s not at all related to Ribolla Gialla from northeastern Italy. It’s its own thing. You’re starting to see a little bit of it come onto the American market. It’s another one of those very clean, beautiful, easy-drinking, pear-driven white wines. You’re going to see it around, but not as much.

There are more white wine varieties out there that I should mention because we’re in the middle of it, wine lovers. We’re in the middle of these wines coming on to our market. I’ve had the opportunity to taste some of them, and they’re really awesome. I’m going to throw down some of these names. Here we go: Assyrtiko, Moschofilero, and Malagousia, we know. Other wines you might be seeing soon are wines from Roditis, Athiri, and Debina. Sometimes wines are blended, sometimes not. We’re starting to see all of that coming on to the American market. Sometimes, Assyrtiko, Malagousia, and Moschofilero are blended together. Sometimes, Assyrtiko is blended with Sauvignon Blanc, because Greece does have some international varieties. We’re focusing on the indigenous here, though. Savatiano, Mandilaria, Vilana, Mavrodaphne, Mavrud, and the list goes on.

I just think this is so cool. The varieties are shrouded in mystery, only because they’re so old that DNA profiling can’t find the origins. When I’m researching grapes, there’s always a story of where people think a grape came from. There’s always different names and pathways. For Greek wines, all they can say is where they think the grape is from. Wow. That’s amazing. What’s cool is that there’s all this mystery surrounding wine, only because these grapes are indigenous. They don’t really grow outside of Greece, and they have no real origin story except from Greece. Sometimes, because the Greek language is difficult, the grapes are difficult to say. That’s it. Other than that, everything is absolutely amazing.

If you’ve never gotten into Greek wine, I hope this episode gets you excited about the Greek white wines. Next week, we’re going to get into the red wines. If you think the white wines are exciting, the red wines are absolutely exciting as well. We’ll do a little geography, a little bit more history, and get you up to speed on that. So, go out, buy Greek white wine, enjoy the hell out of it, and I’ll talk to you next week.

@VinePairKeith is my Insta. Rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. It really helps get the word out there.

And now, for some totally awesome credits. “Wine 101” was produced, recorded, and edited by yours truly, Keith Beavers, at the VinePair headquarters in New York City. I want to give a big ol’ shout-out to co-founders Adam Teeter and Josh Malin for creating VinePair. Big shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, the art director of VinePair, for creating the most awesome logo for this podcast. Also, Darbi Cicci for the theme song. Listen to this. And I want to thank the entire VinePair staff for helping me learn something new everyday. See you next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

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[johnboothus]

With an Urban Sensibility Jennifer McDonald Is Reimagining the Modern Winery

When most of us think of wineries, we picture rural settings, expansive vineyards, and, in the United States, predominantly West Coast locales. But with Jenny Dawn Cellars, Jennifer McDonald is changing all of that. With a family-run winery based in the center of downtown Wichita, Kan., McDonald is making fine wine that’s accessible, fun, and unpretentious.

Jenny Dawn Cellars opened its doors to the public in 2019, after its founding in 2016. All 11 wines are made and served on premise at the winery and tasting room in Union Station, a former railway station that sits squarely in the center of Wichita’s four major business districts.

With fruit and juice sourced from both California and Kansas, Jenny Dawn Cellars offers a wide array of options across three collections: California, Union Station, and Black Sunflower. Styles range from old-school Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay, to fruit wines made from blackberries and cherries — and even watermelon rosé. Many of the fruits are grown in McDonald’s home state of Kansas, including at an offsite urban orchard and winery that she owns and operates.

As Kansas’s first African American commercial winemaker, McDonald’s wines celebrate Jenny Dawn’s identity as a Black-owned business. Focusing on diversity in both her products and clientele, McDonald uses education to make wine a more approachable and inclusive space for Wichita residents.

VinePair spoke with McDonald about how Jenny Dawn Cellars has shifted its operations during the Covid-19 pandemic, her family’s role in the business, and what the future looks like for the Midwestern urban winery.

1. How did you get your start in winemaking?

I actually started as a connoisseur, and my goal was to bring the art of wine to the city of Wichita. My first step was just learning the basics of home winemaking. I purchased wine kits and made those kits literally in my basement. Then, I started procuring fruits and grapes from local growers and expanding my wine recipes. That’s when I started winning some amateur wine contests.

And then once I got a better, more technical foundation of winemaking, that’s when I decided to try and figure out how I could actually build a brand and take my wine to market. I went back to school and got a masters in agribusiness to really help me understand the business side of wine. And then what I found was even wine drinkers in Kansas have an appreciation for fine wines, but they also had a unique interest in some of the hybrid grapes that could be grown here in Kansas. So I thought if I could capture a broad group of wine drinkers wanting different types of wines, but an amazing experience, I could be successful.

I went out to California and partnered with The Wine Foundry, and they actually helped me with my first six wines. And those wines we sold online and through local liquor stores here in Kansas. I felt there was a strong demand for the type of wine that I really enjoyed making and then serving and selling, so that gave me the confidence to say, “OK, if I created this winery space in downtown Wichita” — which still wasn’t available until I started it — “people would come out and they would appreciate the wines that I was creating.” In 2019, I was able to open our urban winery.

2. What are some of the challenges that come with running a winery in an urban city?

I chose Union Station as the location because it’s in the heart of the city. It’s downtown. It’s easily accessible. One of our challenges initially was just getting by and [convincing others] that our concept was going to be successful. When I first started pitching my idea in October 2016, I initially got some huge pushback: “Are there enough wine consumers in Kansas to be your customers? How are you going to sell this wine?” I have successfully overcome all of those objections, and we have a strong community of wine drinkers that come out and support us.

But from a regulatory standpoint, Kansas is really challenging to do business in. We had to jump through some hoops with zoning. We had to jump through hoops with the compliance aspect of having a collection of wines coming from California. It just feels like some of our liquor laws aren’t as modern and up to date as they could be.

And then lastly, funding: It takes a lot of capital to run a full-production winery. We’re making all of our wines here on- site. We’re serving our guests at our tasting room at the same location. And then, we offer small bites because we’re in the downtown setting. We’re doing a lot of different things at a small square footage space, so we’re hoping to expand our footprint here in the next six months.

3. What’s the best part of your job?

Connecting with my customers. I love the customer interaction and teaching wine classes and having people’s palates open up, and the smiles on their faces when they are tasting a delicious wine paired with a great food item. That’s a life- changing experience. That, to me, is the best part of the job.

I do geek out when I am working with the wines and trying to craft the blends, and I really enjoy the winemaking part of it as well. And then last but not least, working with a phenomenal group of people. I have assembled a rock star team [to help run tasting room operations], and I’m excited to see my team members grow their wide knowledge to meet all of our company goals.

4. What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced during your career? How did you overcome it?

I signed my lease for my building in 2017, and it took two years to renovate it. That was two years of a delay and what I thought we would have for revenue. And that was challenging. It can be challenging sometimes to get all of the fruits that you need to make wine. There’s been massive challenges. And supply chain, the cost of freight, is continuing to go up. But we’re very, very grateful that our wines are now able to be shipped nationwide. Right now, they can go to 39 states.

5. How do you work toward empowering minorities in the industry?

We are creating an environment where everyone feels welcome. I think that there’s this old guard of wine that could be very intimidating and very buttoned up. We try to make wine fun and approachable. We try to come at people from, “Here, let’s just try this and let’s talk about the flavors that you are getting from the wines and make it something that is simple and not so complex.”

We have opened up doors to all facets of the community, letting them know that when they come into Jenny Dawn Cellars, they’re welcomed and can try all different types of wines. There’s not just one type that we make — we make dry, semi-sweet, and sweet wines — so there’s a little bit of something for everyone. And we’ll help them along that journey to understand how we made the wines, and how to get the optimal experience from wine pairings, storing and serving temperatures, and things like that.

6. What is it like working with family?

My husband has been very, very helpful. When I was looking at launching this Black Sunflower Collection, I had my kiddos up here cleaning and helping me filter. My husband was up here helping me bottle and set up all my bottling equipment. My family has been a strong asset to the business. It’s fun and bonding. It’s gratifying for me to be able to teach my kids something that they’re learning as life skills: hard work, being able to problem solve, being creative in a craft, and then having something to show for your work. As the cases that we bottle pile up, you can see the fruits of our labor. That, to me, was really gratifying.

7. How did Jenny Dawn’s business operations have to change as a result of the pandemic?

The pandemic was a huge challenge. We opened in November 2019 and then had to shut down the tasting room in March. From March 2020 to the beginning of June 2020, we had to completely change how we delivered our wines to our customers. They could no longer come into our winery to enjoy them, so we had to do curbside pickup. We got more heavily involved in the shipping line, but it was sad because we were promoting this experience — to be able to come into our winery and enjoy the winery experience — and that all went away.

And I know we were not alone in that. The whole world was affected by the pandemic. I’m grateful that we were creative and met the needs of our customers and we’re still here today. Not every business or winery can say that; I know a lot had to permanently close their doors.

8. What is Jenny Dawn’s mission?

Our mission is to craft the best wines that we can using local fruit and grapes, as well as sourcing grapes from growers in Paso Robles, Russian River Valley, and Sonoma. And our mission is to create a more inclusive and diverse wine industry that focuses on creating intimate relationships with our customers and creating an experience with food and wine.

9. How do you envision the future of Jenny Dawn?

Ultimately, our goal is to become the premier winery in our region. Right now, we have a three-year master plan and strategy that we’re working toward, and that’s really to grow our case volume. That’s the short term. But long term, we chose the Union Station location strategically because we feel that we could have other Jenny Dawn Cellars across the U.S. at other Union Stations [across the country].

For the next three years, we’re locked in with the three collections. But it’s going to be fun to do limited-release wines. We’re going to do some specialty holiday labels. There’s a lot that we think we can do to continue to create high-end wines that people enjoy.

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