Friends and Constant Readers: I’m tapping this out on my phone right now. I don’t know what is going on with my electricity this week, but I’ve had power outages off and on Wednesday and Thursday. The power’s been blinking in and out all Thursday afternoon. I’m hoping this stays on, but will try to keep it short. 

All this enforced quiet time has given me a lot of space to think. To think about how fortunate I am to have a nice safe home in the suburbs. 

That I have a job. 

That I have a job with awesome colleagues whose first responses were to make sure I was okay. 

That I have a good well-paying job that has no problem with me working from home in a pandemic. 

That I have friends who immediately offered up their homes, their company, and their phone chargers. 

And how so much of this is possible purely because I was born white.

The idea of writing a chirpy peppy wine column this week has just grossed me out, and so I’m not going to do that. I am going to say that the wine industry, both for opening up jobs to Black people and for appealing to Black consumers, like so many other businesses has a long way to go. I need to work harder to ask questions and promote Black winemakers, Black wine educators, and other wine professionals of color. 

Below is my attempt to start learning:

• https://vinepair.com/articles/wine-industry-black-consumers-marketing/

• https://theauthenticvoice.org/mainstories/newfaces_wine/diversity_sommeliers/

• https://travelnoire.com/black-sommelier-changing-narrative-around-wine

I need to do more. I need to do better.

I hope you think about this this coming weekend. Hopefully while your air conditioning is still on.

Kind regards.