PARTNERS IN WINE

Ampelos Wines, opening in Bishop

Arts early this summer, will bring natural wines to Oak Cliff

Story by EMMA RUBY

Weaver and

Martinez, who have been in a long distance relationship since 2019, discussed many of their ideas for Ampelos Wines during FaceTime dates.

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Genvieve Weaver and Jessica Martinez met while polishing wine glasses.

They were working at an event promoting natural wine that was being hosted at The Wild Detectives. Both women were new to Dallas. Both women had an appreciation for natural wines.

Weaver thought the idea for the event was a great one. Martinez was the brain behind it.

The two have “been together ever since,” partners romantically and in their shared love for the wine industry. And starting this summer, they will be business partners as well.

Ampelos Wines, a shop opening just down the street from where the duo first met in 2019, is the endeavor of Weaver and Martinez and will feature natural wines from all over the world.

Natural wines are made in smaller batches than mass-produced wines and the flavor can vary from year to year depending on the conditions grapes are grown in and how they develop. Natural wine makers tend not to add chemicals or intervene with the flavor profile, and they pick, press and mix wines using human labor.

This is unlike mass-produced wine, which tastes consistent from year to year, and Martinez says it has given natural wine an unfair reputation.

“Up until recently, natural wine caught a bad rap. There’s this idea that like, it’s funky, there’s something odd to it,” Martinez says.

Martinez is a harvest worker, splitting her time between Dallas and Oregon. She harvests wine for Portland Wine Company, which natural wine fans may know of by the boutique name Love and Squalor.

As a veteran harvester, Martinez is also in the process of making her own wine, a gamay noir. The red variety is a genetic cousin to pinot noir, and “a little more punk rock” than the more well-known wine.

Whereas pinot noir has a “finesse and elegance,” gamay noirs are dry, juicy and fruity. Martinez says the grapes that make a gamay noir are her favorite to work with.

As someone who has had their own toes in the grapes, she says she values wine that is made ethically from “the vine all the way down to the bottle.”

“It’s definitely hard to define natural, there’s no official term for it,” Martinez says. “For us, it means sustainability. Aside from sustainability, and minimal intervention for the juice, we care about things like are the harvest workers being compensated fairly?”

The shop’s name, Ampelos, comes from Weaver and Martinez’s shared love for Greek culture. According to Greek mythology, the god of wine, Dionysus, made the first vine from the body of a satyr he loved named Ampelos.

Martinez says the name merges the couple’s shared love for mythology while also “subtly nodding” to an LGBT story.

Weaver, who will run the Bishop