Diversity in Winemaking

Interesting blog post, and certainly correct that black people are under-represented in the wine business:

Guess What? You’re White! – American Winemaking’s Diversity Crisis | 1 Wine Dude" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Discuss.

A shitty article if you ask me. How can you seriously bring up underrepresentation when you have quotes like this:

If American winemakers held a dance party tomorrow, it would be a clinic in the world’s worst overbite-sporting dance floor moves, because it would be lilywhite.

On the topic though, I really don’t care who is making the wine - white, black, yellow, green, purple, etc. I only care about 2 things: 1) are the wines good and 2) is the winemaker a cool person (if I know them). Well, 3 things: cost too of course.

Will more African Americans become interested in wine if they see more African American winemakers - probably. But how does the wine business draw African Americans into the biz if they don’t seem that interested? Set up an inner city winemaking program?

Because that’s the only place African Americans live I guess?

No I meant to equate to all the programs like Reviving Baseball in Innercities (RBI) or Tiger Woods golf academies, etc., that are aimed at African American youths in the inner cities. I will say, where I have grown up So Cal and where I live now (Oakland) the highest concentration of African Americans do live in the inner cities and not in the suburbs.

This may be a true statement, but then the highest “concentration” of people live in cities and not suburbs.

It seems to me that lots of winemakers began doing what they do because they were interested in wine. I don’t have a keen sense of the social demographics of wine enthusiasm or wine consumption, but maybe figuring out how to increase the number of African American wine geeks would ultimately contribute to better representation of that group among winemakers.

I would be curious to know from some recent UC Davis and Fresno St Grads, how many African Americans were in their oenology programs? My bet 1 or 2 at most.

So the answer is exposing the African American community to wine. I know when I worked at Outpost and at Kosta Browne, I can count on one hand the number of African Americans that visited the wineries. At Pinot Days SF, recently, not more than a handful.

And attending the East Bay Vintners Tasting (Oakland, Berkeley & Emeryville - where there are large concentrations of African Americans) a very small number as well. Participants are overwhelmingly white or Asian.

Tony, our clientele actually exceeds the national demographics when it comes to Afrodescendent Americans (9-11% depending on who you get your numbers from) by a good margin. I would it to be estimate as much as 15% of our regular customers (although they skew young, quite educated and female).

I’ve always been a little more puzzled by the lack of Hispanics. Given that our wineries and fields are full of part and full time Mexican and Central American workers, how is it so few of them ever move into production at the management level?

In the South Bay there are now 100-130 wineries and I pretty sure we have one black, and two Mexican winemakers. It’s hard to say UC Davis training/enrollment is a factor in those numbers because the three of us almost outnumber the number of Davis trained winemakers in the area.

I see opportunity for the right person. There are plenty of cases of winemakers of unique heritage capturing a large portion of that market…a lot of people of Croat descent I’ve met are very loyal to Grgich Hills, for example.

I don’t feel responsible for the perceived failures of the space program, though

Based on the numbers above, it’s not a stretch to say that the state of African American representation in winemaking is pathetic.

And frankly, given the racial divides that have been crossed in recent years, the American winemaking community should consider that an embarrassment.

It’s an embarrassment nearly on the same level of the U.S. space program> , which spends billions sending people into Earth orbit (using a craft that is run by three 286 CPUs) to conduct experiments, circle the Earth a few times and come back – which one could argue is a huge waste of money and people potential when there is so much more we could be doing in terms of space exploration than basically duplicating what Sputnik did in 1957.

As for > why we’re in this situation, I blame the winemakers > – black, white, and every color in-between…

There are a slew of people of Hispanic descent here in our area who have moved into winery and production management as winemakers, Assistant/Associate WM’s, Cellar Masters, and a number of winery owners.

Often second or third generation in the wine biz. There are some great stories and families in this regard.

Do you think that’s leading a trend Nate?

We have very few 2nd generation winemakers at all here. The work is too hard, since we mostly also do our own farming, the land too valuable, and the rewards, especially financial are pretty thin. The kids want to do something else and sell the land is the general rule.

Very interesting thread Nate. I am of mixed background, my mother black and my father white. My wife is latina, from Nicaragua, moving over here at 4 years old. Surely, we are doing our part.

As to inner city…hmm, not sure where to go on that one. But, I will say that wine could benefit from being more universal period.

Sadly, this is a growing trend in Spain and France as well. Too many want to work in banks, be lawyers, doctors, etc. We are losing generation chains of wine makers. Nate, you better get going with your’s. They’ll be fourth gen, right?

Paul- The challenges you mention are always an obstacle to continuity especially in agriculture. I think unfortunately that they cross ethnic boundaries, too. Wanting to work less, less physically-demanding work, making more money, a desire to leave a rural area, living somewhere with more to do and more culture, etc. In many ways, though, this is the American dream right? Being upwardly mobile through the social ladder. As a society in whole, agriculture seems to be moving from a central part of life to being one that is taken for granted, in some cases even despised.

The head foreman/supervisor (Hispanic) at a particularly wonderful 100+ acre vineyard I used to work with, for example, is a great man and one of the most knowledgeable about grapegrowing (especially organic/sustainable) around. He’s been there for 20+ years. He is incredibly proud that his kids have gone to places like Cal on academic scholy’s. When asked if they are going to come back to the valley and get into the wine biz with he and his brothers (who are all foremen, cellar masters, etc) he looks at you like you’re nuts. He hopes they go on to get PhD’s or MD’s or MBA’s and go on to fry bigger fish. Why in the heck would they want to come back into agriculture?

A lot of the family wineries around here are experiencing this strife. Owners are aging, and the next gen either: a) is primed and excited to take over b) is incapable c) isn’t interested (Frost alarms and tractors pre-sunrise and 80 hour weeks during the fall and dust and snakes and cuts and bruises? They’d rather live in the Marina and play frisbee on the weekends…and who can blame them?) Option (a) is pretty rare (but I’ve met a few folks lately whose parents own wineries and who are really, really into it, which gives me great hope and a reason to smile). I’m sure you saw that SVB report predicting that 50+% of family-owned wineries will change hands in the next decade…

Ray - My kids would be 3rd gen. If they’re interested. There was a home WM in my grandparents’ generation, but we’re only counting the pros here. While I would love to see continuity (especially poignant in my new position working for a family that has been doing it for 26 generations) in the biz andhere in the valley, where my family has been since the late '60s, if they are responsible, productive members of society, that will be good enough for me. You won’t catch me lamenting their career choices if they decide to become surgeons or firemen or judges or soldiers

It’s an interesting question Nate. I’ve not run into any prejudice in the business that I can recall. Really everyone I know, and I’m thinking of people like Casey Hartlip, Therese and Dan Martin, Bill Holt and Bob Varner, think of the Hispanic employees they have as family. They talk about how long people have been with them and how loyal they are to each other.

It’s just my curious mind going I guess. I really believe it’s not discrimination keep minorities out of production, just my curiosity on what it is? I do think there is a strong bias for people to want their children to do something besides farm labor and get their kids into school and to a higher paying job. I know for my own helper, the only thing he’ll ever ask me for a day off for is to go to his son’s school.

I think we will be seeing more Hispanic winemakers who came up the hard way. It just takes a lot of time. But this should be notable.

The path through school requires, I think, a real passion for wine. So I would expect the percentages of whatever ethnicity coming through Davis & Fresno to roughly equate wine consumption demographics (of younger wine drinkers).

Doesn’t this have to do more with family traditions and heritage more than anything else? People are always amazed that I got into making wine even though my mother and father never drank wine at home.

Maybe people who grow up with a culture of wine drinking are more likely to enter the biz as more than just “workers”. If that’s true, then it wouldn’t seem odd to me that there’s a predominance of people with European lineage in winemaker and owner roles.

It would be nice to see more diversity. Hopefully as we develope more of a wine culture in this country we’ll see that happen.

Rolando is a great example of a guy who has started at the bottom and become very successful via hard work, business acumen, and confidence/courage:

http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2009/07/22/business/10_questions/doc4a66a8fa118c5467664322.txt" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mi Sueno has been a very successful brand here.

Y el es muey guapo, tambien!

I like the comment about his goal of balancing work and family. Managing multiple vineyards, making and marketing wine and raising young children at the same time is a huge balancing act, that I constantly struggle with.

I can imagine that is a struggle for him. He is a very intense and focused guy. I’d imagine it is hard to pull him away from work at reasonable hours any time of year…during crush, fuggetaboutit

When he first started Mi Sueno, there were a number of other production guys around the valley that used to leave their day jobs and help him with stuff like racking at night at Mi Sueno…I think for nothing, basically. He has that kind of effect on people.

And the guapo thing helped with the 6 kids, no doubt.