By Mike Dunne | Special to The OBSERVER

Heather Pyle Lucas, left, provides the latest group of LAIC scholars with a lesson in the organic and biodynamic farming she and her husband Dave practice at their Lodi winery and vineyard, The Lucas Winery. Included are Kenda Waugh, Trina Holmes, Toni Davis, Victor Matias and Daren Clark. Randy Caparoso, courtesy photo.
Heather Pyle Lucas, left, provides the latest group of LAIC scholars with a lesson in the organic and biodynamic farming she and her husband Dave practice at their Lodi winery and vineyard, The Lucas Winery. Included are Kenda Waugh, Trina Holmes, Toni Davis, Victor Matias and Daren Clark. Randy Caparoso, courtesy photo.

In the wake of the George Floyd killing and the wave of protests that followed, Rodney and Susan Tipton asked themselves what they could do to help improve race relations in the United States.

It was a discussion likely occurring in homes across the country, but the Tiptons were well placed to take concrete steps toward rectifying what they saw as a national shortcoming.

They focused on their backyard, Lodi, where they are engaged members of the wine trade as the owners of Acquiesce Winery, a small family-run facility specializing in white wines inspired by the grapes and traditions of France’s Rhone Valley.

In short order, their reflection led to the development of the Lodi Appellation Inclusion Collective (LAIC, or “lacy”), a program to recruit and mentor members of minority groups they see as underrepresented in the nation’s wine trade – people of color, the indigenous, LGBTQ. Only 0.1% of U.S. wineries are Black-owned.

The intent of the program, which now involves about 20 other Lodi wineries, including Michael David, Klinker Brick, Sandlands, Bokisch, Markus and Lucas, is twofold: to increase diversity in the wine trade and to raise the standing of Lodi not only as a source of grapes and wine, but as an all-embracing enclave for the industry.

The backbone of the outreach is periodic weeklong sessions in which about half a dozen aspiring wine professionals are invited to Lodi to meet with grape growers and winemakers, who introduce them to topics ranging from pruning practices to blending decisions, all alternating with meals and wine tastings.

“I wanted to join this trip to make practical the things I was reading. I wanted to feel what sandy loam soil felt like. I wanted to see the sun exposure on the vineyard. I wanted to taste a grape right off the vine. I wanted to touch a wine barrel,” says Kenda Waugh of New Orleans, one of six LAIC scholars to join one of the group’s immersions last fall. “You can read how to prune a vine, but it’s nothing like touching it and evaluating it to figure out which branches should be cut and which way. I couldn’t have gotten any of that from anywhere else.”

Waugh is a native of New Orleans, where she works as a kidney dialysis technician with a yearning to join the wine trade. Five years from now, she hopes to own “a beautiful wine shop specializing in small-production and biodynamic wines.”

The Lodi program delegates a selection of participants to the Roots Fund, another relatively new nonprofit committed specifically to attracting financial support for scholarships, mentoring and job placement in wine for people of color.

Of LAIC, Ikimi Dubose, the Roots Fund’s executive director, says, “They could very well be credited for being our first supporters in California.”

In addition to being people of color, participants in the LAIC initiative must be legal U.S. residents and be actively pursuing education in the wine trade. For several participants in the three sessions so far, that has meant studying for certification as a wine professional through the London-based Wine and Spirit Education Trust.

‘Much More Than Zinfandel’

Victor Matias, left, is flanked by other members of the group during a lunch and wine tasting orchestrated by Lodi winemakers Tegan Passalacqua and Markus Niggli, at Guantonios Wood Fired, a Lodi restaurant. Mike Dunne, courtesy photo.
Victor Matias, left, is flanked by other members of the group during a lunch and wine tasting orchestrated by Lodi winemakers Tegan Passalacqua and Markus Niggli, at Guantonios Wood Fired, a Lodi restaurant. Mike Dunne, courtesy photo.

For last fall’s immersion, Lodi was an entirely new destination for most of the participants. Even Victor Matias, a Napa Valley native and a cellar intern at Inglenook Winery of Rutherford, hadn’t before been to Lodi. He is new to the wine business, having previously been on track to be a professional dancer and choreographer.

For Matias, the Lodi exposure broadened his perspective on the range of occupational opportunities in the wine trade, from vineyard management to wine distribution, pest control to winery ownership.

He was no less struck by the range of grape varieties, styles of wine, and “eco-friendly vineyard methods” he discovered in Lodi, an appellation long identified largely with corporate rather than boutique winemaking and with one grape and varietal wine, Zinfandel. “Lodi has way much more than Zinfandel,” says Matias, impressed by the number of artisan winemakers he met and by vintners concentrating on such obscure but increasingly fashionable wines like Vermentino, Kerner and Cinsault.

Various reasons are given for underrepresentation of people of color in the wine trade, aside from Latinos who do much of the work in vineyard and cellar: The expense of delving into wine either as a hobby or professional goal, the general lack of wine as a dietary staple in cultures beyond Europe, and flat-out racial bias.

One member of the group to visit Lodi last fall, Trina Marie Holmes of Alexandria, Virginia, who began to segue into the wine business seven years ago after earning degrees in political science and adult education and training at Howard University, can identify with all that, especially bias she faced as she was drawn to wine. “It’s been a journey to be taken seriously in the industry. I’ve definitely been ignored in wine spaces as an African-American female. It’s quite off-putting,” she says.

Nevertheless, after earning certificates through the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, support from the Roots Fund and help from a mentor, she now is a member of the wine-education team at District Winery in Washington D.C. She also oversees her own company, Chick on the Scene, which arranges introductory wine tastings for consumers.

“The Roots Fund and my mentor have helped me get into spaces I would otherwise be excluded from. Sending my résumé out with my wine certifications is different now,” Holmes says.

For virtually each participant in last fall’s immersion, Lodi was a surprise – for its size (100,000 acres under vine, about 90 wineries), for the amount of grapes harvested by wineries outside the area, including Napa Valley (around half of each year’s yield), for the rising presence of green grapes across the Lodi landscape (approximately two-thirds of Lodi’s wine grapes traditionally have been black), and for the spirit of community cooperation in better understanding and advancing the appellation’s potential for fine wine.

“The most surprising thing about Lodi is the number of varieties grown here, and that it has some of the oldest vines in the region. Also, the amount of grapes Lodi produces for other regions blew my mind,” Waugh says.

Trina Marie Holmes was similarly impressed. “I learned that some really great white wines are produced in Lodi that aren’t widely distributed on the East Coast where I reside. And I was really surprised by how much the Lodi community works together and helps each other,” she says.

A Lift For Industry’s Latinos

Kenda Waugh lifts up a cluster of Nebbiolo grapes at Potrero Vineyards in the Clements Hills sub-appellation of Lodi. Randy Caparoso, courtesy photo.
Kenda Waugh lifts up a cluster of Nebbiolo grapes at Potrero Vineyards in the Clements Hills sub-appellation of Lodi. Randy Caparoso, courtesy photo.

Rodney Tipton and other members of LAIC recognize that they also could be helping local Latino laborers who have worked in vineyards and cellars for years without advancing in the business. Toward that goal, LAIC is working on two certificate-based programs to help youth improve job skills and assume more responsibilities in viticulture and enology.

One involves a recently developed eight-week curriculum for high-school students interested in earning an associate degree or industry certificate in viticulture and wine studies. That program was developed with San Joaquin A+, a group of local educators and business leaders that since 1996 has focused on enhancing educational opportunities for youths, in large part by providing targeted tutoring.

That program kicked off in May with an orientation session at Acquiesce Winery that introduced prospective candidates to all the roles involved in transforming vineyard grapes into bottled wine, from farming the fruit to selling the finished product. Winemaking communities in Washington and Oregon have expressed interest in emulating LAIC’s efforts at Lodi, Rodney Tipton notes.

“Of course, would-be employers will see the obvious advantage the graduates will have versus those who might be interested but have not had exposure or experience in agriculture or wine,” he says.

The second program will address workers already in the wine trade who want to broaden their knowledge and elevate their careers. That program is to recruit local laborers for a deep dive into lessons on how Lodi has become a center for grape growing, winemaking, hospitality and marketing.

For more information, contact laic-collective.com.