Stephen Satterfield Instagram – In the wake of some considerable bullshit yesterday I did not have a chance to properly express how truly overjoyed I was to be included in this @nytimes roundup of Black wine professionals.
I started in wine in the Willamette Valley in 2005. Back then we learned about who was poppin from @foodandwine and people like @andrearobinsonms were the wave. The most visible Black somm at the time hands down was @andrehmack. I super looked up to him then and still do.
Wine as a vocation was an idea that first popped into my brain at 19. I was in culinary school and taking hospitality classes, a mindful middle ground between my already well established love of food, and my desire to fall into some similar kind of love with wine.
But being the only one for so long is no fun, ya know? So I left, but kept my love by my side. I decided that if I was gonna be Black in the wine industry that I was gonna be all the way Black. So I started the International Society of Africans in Wine and I became (ISAW). I went all the way to Africa to link with Black colleagues, which is where I first met Ntsiki @nbiyela. She was the first Black woman in her country to make wine professionally.
Ten years ago today I was in Stellenbosch for the second time. Guess who was there too? @juliaconey! at the home of Diale and Malmsey, the only Black family in the game with their own land to their name. Black wine lovers on the outskirts, in the Western Cape and the USA. Damn the Dutch and British did a number, didn’t they?
After ISAW I thought I lost that part of me. Y’all thought ISAWSTEPHEN was a clever name but that’s where I came from. Now for the best part:
I was googling for yesterday’s NYT clip but instead took a trip to 2009. January 27th. @ericasimov who wrote this article (who I revered as a wine writer then and still do! Thank you for writing this, Eric!) wrote about South African wine, and well, let’s just say, I BEEN ON MESSAGE!
Anyhoooo….
I’m so so proud of us all! 🖤🖤🖤 | Posted on 01/Jul/2020 10:39:18
