what we’re drinking
L
ashonda Modest had little to no experience in the
B Y HAN N AH LEE PHOTOG RAPHY B Y J OH N M I C H A EL S I M PS O N
inspiration behind our family [restaurant] that’s still open 20 years wine industry (aside from the occasional glass she’d later,” she says. She, too, received that gumptious gene. That drive, in drink in the evenings). She spent the first decade of combination with her prior work experience, was the perfect base to her professional career working as a researcher in life propel her newfound passion. She found an unassuming storefront sciences. Eventually, the wine connoisseur couldn’t help in a commercial building on Industry Lane, just a short drive from but do some research of her own on her favorite windthe Southpoint area, got her permits and hosted her grand opening down beverage of choice. with the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce in October. She What she discovered shocked her. anticipated around 60 people showing up, and her team “In the wine industry, women – there easily saw a couple hundred people come through. are so few of us,” Lashonda says. “African American The popularity of her burgeoning business owes some Melanated Wine women – it’s so few of us. I was like, ‘But why?’ I was credit to Yadkin Valley Wine Country – seven counties 4608-F Industry Ln. curious and really wanted to figure out what I could do.” packed with dozens of vineyards that’s just two hours 919-695-3303 What she ended up doing was opening Melanated away. She works directly with Childress Vineyards for melanatedwine.com Wine, Durham’s first woman-owned and Black-owned production and bottling. winery, this past August. “The people, the wineries, vineyards and all the Black-owned wineries account for less than 1% of all owners are amazing,” she says. “They have welcomed wineries in the U.S., while Black people often make up more than 10% me with open arms. Had I gone anywhere else or decided to put my of American wine consumers, according to “Terroir Noir: 2020 Study business anywhere else outside of North Carolina, I don’t know if I of Black Wine Entrepreneurs” published by Monique Bell, a professor would have had that [support].” at California State University, Fresno. Black women? They make up an Assuredly, she tasted more than 100 wine varietals before even smaller fraction of that miniscule number. landing on her current four wines. Her go-to, she says, But that didn’t deter Lashonda. She comes from a lineage of is the riesling “Manifest.” It’s a crisp, entrepreneurs – she kindly remembers her late grandfather making semisweet wine that reflects pork sausage and selling it to neighbors in Illinois. “He was the her aspirations for 30
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