Melanated Wine debuts as the Triangle’s first Black-owned winery
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Lashonda Modest created Melanated Wine for those raise-a-glass moments in life, the ones toasted and savored and accompanied by wine.
“Wine is one of the beverages that people celebrate with,” Modest said. “You drink it at baby showers and funerals and every instance in between. I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted our brand to be a part of those stories.”
Melanated Wine opened last year as Durham’s first Black-owned winery and tasting room. Modest said the wine industry often doesn’t reflect the diversity of its consumers, a gap she hopes Melanated will work to close.
“I really wanted more representation in the wine industry,” Modest said. “It’s a heavily male-dominated, white-dominated industry and I really was trying to figure out why. I love wine, a lot of people I know love wine, but why aren’t we getting into this industry?”
A 2019 survey by industry magazine Seven Fifty reported that 2% of workers in wine are Black. In a story this month, Ebony magazine reported on a 2020 study of Black winemakers by professor Monique Bell, finding less than 1% of the country’s 11,000 wineries are Black-owned.
Modest said that reality helped form the name Melanated Wine, helping consumers know the brand’s identity from the moment they see the label.
“I wanted a name that conveyed the richness of our history and wanted to have something to make our people comfortable,” Modest said. “It’s a brand made by a woman of color, talking about the melanin in her skin. It’s about removing the boundaries that other people put on us.”
Modest has lived in the Triangle for more than a decade, moving from Illinois to work in clinical research. She comes from a family of entrepreneurs, she said, growing up watching people take chances and follow their dreams. That inspired her to follow her own, she said.
“This is an industry that seems so intimidating,” Modest said. “You can especially feel intimidated as a woman of color. But wine brings everyone together.”
Leaving the world of clinical research for an adventure in wine didn’t take a light-bulb moment, Modest said, but rather the realization over time that the wine industry should be better.
“There wasn’t one moment, there were many moments,” Modest said. “It was going to the grocery store and not seeing any wines made by people of color.”
Melanated currently bottles four wines, each made from grapes grown in the Yadkin Valley and produced at the Childress Vineyards to Modest’s desired flavor profile. The most popular, Modest said, is a white sangria, an off-dry riesling, a white blend of riesling and chardonnay and a red blend of cabernet franc and syrah. Modest said Melanated will release two more wines soon, but the current lineup offers an accessible entry point for newcomers to wine, as well as fun bottles for experienced wine lovers. The tasting room is open Monday through Saturday at 4608 Industry Ln., in South Durham.
“New wine drinkers are typically introduced with sweeter wines, and as your palette expands you’re more curious and start trying new varietals or a bottle someone brings to a dinner party,” Modest said.
Melanated Wine is already making the kinds of changes Modest hoped for.
“That’s what I mean when I say ‘uncork the culture,’” Modest said. “I know I’m making a difference when I have phone calls and emails waiting for me from someone wanting to also figure out how to break into this industry. I’m a person of color doing this, but I’m not only doing this for people of color, it’s (going to impact) everyone who loves wine.”
Melanated Wine
Where: 4608 Industry Ln., Durham
Tasting room: Open Monday through Saturday
Call: 919-695-3303
News & Observer readers: Click here for Part Three.
Durham Herald-Sun readers: Click here for Part Three.
This story was originally published February 16, 2022 at 5:45 AM with the headline "Melanated Wine debuts as the Triangle’s first Black-owned winery."
