Oregon Has the Country s First Black Female-Led Winery
Tiquette Bramlett, the new president of Vidon Vineyard, is a passionate advocate for diversity in the wine industry.
By
Katherine Chew Hamilton
5/3/2021 at 12:00pm
Tiquette Bramlett has been appointed president of Vidon Vineyard.
Just miles away in Newberg, Tiquette Bramlett is making national wine history as the new president of Vidon Vineyard. Bramlett is the first Black woman hired to lead a winery in the country. She boasts six years of experience in the Willamette Valley wine sceneâshe started out at Anne Amie Vineyards in Carlton, and was most recently the brand ambassador at Abbey Creek Vineyard in North Plains.
Not everyone’s palate is the same. That may sound obvious, but a hospitality world that was built to serve a white, primarily male audience often ignores the simple truth. Zoom all the way in, and the statement is one way to understand Empowering the Diner, a virtual event series that two Black, female bar professionals recently announced in D.C. Sommelier Erica Christian and bartender Kapri Robinson want to equip BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) customers with eating and drinking expertise that will boost their confidence and give them to the tools to maximize their enjoyment in bars and restaurants.
illustration: Danielle Grinberg
A month before the pandemic hit the United States and quarantine began, a startup social networking app called Clubhouse emerged on the scene. The invite-only platform is a form of talk radio in which conversations take place in rooms hosted by moderators and disappear when chats are over. You can’t message or email from the app. The goal is to listen, chat, and maybe learn something.
One year since its launch, Clubhouse now hosts over 10 million users whose conversations can range from how to raise venture capital for startups, to which comedians are overrated. Recently, the app was valued at $4 billion.
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Empowering the Diner founders Erica Christian and Kapri Robinson. Photos courtesy of Erica Christian and Kapri Robinson.
Sommelier Erica Christian and Kapri Robinson, bartender and founder of cocktail competition Chocolate City’s Best are launching a BIPOC-focused event series dubbed Empowering the Diner to help consumers gain confidence in their personal palates while challenging established norms within a genus of beverage. First on the virtual table? A four-week wine workshop starting on May 2, highlighting the expertise of BIPOC pros like Bad Saint’s Amanda Carpenter and wine writer Julia Coney.
Christian and Robinson talked to
Washingtonian about trusting your own taste and creating a space where BIPOC folx are at the center of the conversation.
Registration is open now for the virtual job fair on April 22. April 21, 2021
The second Be the Change Job Fair, dedicated to creating more diverse and equitable workplaces in the beverage alcohol industry, will take place virtually on April 22, 2021. Candidate registration is now open “to all” and the free, four-hour event, which has space for up to 2,400 jobseekers, has expanded this go around from the wine world to include beer and spirits as well.
The first Be the Change Job Fair, which took place last December, was wine-job focused simply because all four founders Cara Bertone, Lia Jones, Philana Bouvier, and Rania Zayyat have wine-centric backgrounds. But as word spread, Be the Change started receiving inquiries about expanding to beer and spirits. Not wanting to pivot too quickly on their first-ever job fair, they decided to save the expansion for the next one. This time, they’re ready and have big-name exhibitors in the beer and spirits industries like Tito’s