I’ve been lucky. The people I’ve worked with have mostly lived in the neighborhoods where they built their businesses. Their guests weren’t abstractions. They were neighbors, friends, people opening their doors for the first time to see what was going on inside. Even when someone is coming into a neighborhood, I think the best business owners still ask: how do I serve the people who live here? How do I bring together what I love and what they’ll actually want?

Wine (and beer and spirits) are the backbone of all food businesses. It’s the thing that keeps the margins a little less thin. It enhances a meal, gets grabbed for a dinner party, or goes home with someone for a Tuesday night on the couch. The beverage program is rarely the thing a restaurant owner leads with when they’re describing their vision. But it’s often the thing that determines whether the business survives.

Because owners have so much on their plates, sometimes someone like me gets called in. I work as a freelance wine director — curator, buyer, whatever you want to call it. I come in with a point of view, a network, and a lot of opinions, and together with the owner we figure out what the list should say.

I’ve built a couple of them now. And each one taught me something different.

Retail Buying

A few years ago, I was working a wine PR job and felt like I couldn’t do anything right. I was starting to lose confidence and wondered if I should quit it all and become an underwater welder or tiger tamer — anything to get me away from behind my desk.

Then I got a message from Ariell Illunga.

She’d found me on a website highlighting Black wine professionals and said she was opening a store. After years managing one of Los Angeles’ largest farmers markets, she wanted to bring that feeling of shopping small and local to Highland Park. But she didn’t feel confident in her wine knowledge.

I was happy to take on the project. The brief was simple: wines made in the same spirit as the groceries lining the shelves — small-batch, artisanal, organic, and made by marginalized producers from around the world.

We tasted bottle after bottle until we filled the fridge and table where the wine would live.

That buying position gave me back my confidence. I knew how to educate staff, keep shelves stocked, and trust my own opinions about wine.

Carla’s was a small business in a hard market, in a city that asks so much of people trying to build something good. The fires. The economic pressure.

The business didn’t make it through all of that.

Intermission: Ode to a Wine List

(image i'm reciting this to you table side. there are four people at the table and between lines i take a beat to make sustain eye contact with each of you. don't laugh) 

(i clear my throat) 

before a bottle can grace the table 
before a cork can be popped 
before the chatter can get rolling
you must first be dropped 

lines and lines of states and countries
rows and rows of varieties  
it all falls into place and time 
you offer endless ways to rhyme 

excuse me can you help us with this list? 
excuse me there are so many questions that exist 
it’s difficult we just don’t want to miss
please leave us with all of your favorites

We have been looking forward to this engagement.

The Restaurant Wine List

Ariell introduced me to Kaiy, the owner of Neighbors and Friends Kitchen in Pasadena, and this project felt different from the start.

My role here was less curator, more connector. I made the tasting appointments, took notes, and brought my opinion to every conversation and I was also there to serve a brief. And this brief was specific: all California wines, with a focus on underrepresented winemakers.

The tastings themselves felt different too. They were big family affairs, the kind of room where the energy was warm. I was there to listen, take notes, and gather opinions. I was happy to hear each wine rep out and, at every tasting, I was fed. It pays to be part of a project while they’re still deep in food research and development.

The owner also had a commitment I found quietly radical: she wanted a very conservative markup on the wine. In an industry where markups can make wine feel like a luxury tax, she wanted guests to drink well without breaking the bank. That’s a values decision. That’s someone saying: the people at my tables deserve access to something good, and I’m not going to use wine as a profit center at their expense.

That kind of thinking shapes a wine list as much as any tasting note.

What I’ll Bring to My Next Project

Here is what I know now more than ever:

A wine list is a document of relationships. One of the biggest parts of this work is the relationships I’ve built with other wine reps along the way, people whose portfolios and opinions I’ve come to trust. And who I want to spend time with.

Every bottle represents a conversation, a tasting, a trust extended. When you see a wine on a list by a small producer someone made the decision to put it there. Someone decided that story was worth telling.

A brief is everything. Before starting any project, you have to decide what matters most. What do you want to bring to your guests? There is nothing wrong with region, variety, or price being the thing that guides a list. But there is something special when the choices reflect what you truly believe in.

The next time you open a wine list, I want you to read it a little differently. Not as a test to pass, but as a document. Ask yourself: whose values are reflected here? Who was thought of when this was built?

You might be surprised by what you find.

Tiny Pleasures, Vol. 11

I’m obsessed with tiny living spaces and this YouTube Channel Never Too Small is my favorite.

I’d like to spend my time doing this more:

Drink this:

That’s the first question Hardy McQueen asks about any wine he’s considering working with. Before the tasting notes. Before the acidity. Before anything technical. If the answer is no, the rest of the conversation doesn’t happen.

In Hardy’s world, “nice” has specific parameters. A nice wine tastes like the year it came from — not like last year’s version of itself, not like a polished corporate house style engineered for consistency. The vineyard changes. The weather changes. The wines should change too.

Spend any time talking to Hardy and it’s clear he isn’t just talking about flavor. He’s talking about people. About culture. About who gets to participate in wine at all.

A Path To Wine

Before wine, Hardy trained as a chef in Cape Town, moved into hospitality consulting with his company Smorgasbord, and later launched one of the biggest sneaker festivals in South Africa.

He didn’t come into wine through the traditional routes. He didn’t grow up around estates or inherit vineyard land. When the pandemic shut everything down in 2020, he suddenly had the time to read, taste, and think seriously about what his own wine project might look like.

What he kept coming back to was who wasn’t there.

The Weight of African Wine History

The history of wine in Africa is something Hardy has always thought about while building Nice Beverage Company. South African wine in particular is rooted in colonization, exploitation, and apartheid. In The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil puts it plainly, “the white colonists who began the wine industry displaced and subjugated the local Khoisan population and later brought in slaves to work the vineyards.”

Apartheid-era sanctions kept South African wine out of international markets for decades. When those sanctions lifted in 1991, the industry stayed overwhelmingly white. It still is. Black South Africans make up the majority of the country’s population and most of the labor that built the wine industry, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at who owns the estates.

Hardy is also interested in the wine history of places like Algeria. “It’s not just Cape Town,” he told me. “There’s been successful big industries around the continent, at various times. These are the things that don’t get spoken about.”

By the 1930s, Algeria was the world’s largest exporter of wine. It held that title for decades. At its peak in the 1950s, the country had more than 400,000 hectares of vineyards — more land under vine than most of the countries we think of as “wine countries” today. Until 1970, Algeria was the world’s fourth-biggest wine producer, in a country where a majority of the population was Muslim and didn’t drink.

Most of those grapes were shipped to France and blended into French bottles to bulk them up. For decades, when people thought they were drinking French wine, a substantial portion of what was in their glass had been grown in North Africa.

Thousands of years of wine history on the continent of Africa have been erased or renamed. Hardy could have tried to find a place inside that system. He started Nice Beverage Company instead.

Building Nice Beverage Company

Hardy doesn’t hand his collaborators a spec sheet. He hands them trust.

“If we aren’t vibing, we can’t make wine together,” he told me.

The project operates as a collaboration between Hardy and a rotating group of Black South African winemakers, many of whom work for established wineries while quietly building projects of their own. The wines come out under the Nice Beverage Company label, but uniformity isn’t the goal. If anything, the wines push against it. Each bottle reflects the perspective of the person who made it rather than a house style designed to taste the same year after year.

Building it hasn’t been frictionless. First, Hardy had to establish trust with the winemakers he wanted to work with — show them that the project wasn’t too good to be true, that Nice Beverage was something they could believe in. Then he had to find distribution outside South Africa. In a wine scene built around multi-generational estates steeped in European traditions, breaking in as a newcomer with a different vision was going to be near-impossible. So he launched Nice Beverage in the U.S. first, and brought it home to South Africa after.

Reimagining Wine Culture

That philosophy doesn’t stop at the bottle. It shapes how Hardy thinks wine should actually be experienced.

“One thing that I’m super determined about is that our tasting events — we don’t do charcuterie and cheese,” he told me. “I’m doing fried chicken. I’m doing lamb biryani. I’m doing barbecued meats.”

Wine culture has spent a long time asking people to adapt themselves to its rituals — the right glass, the right vocabulary, the right little plate of cheese. The instinct to throw a tasting that doesn’t look like every other tasting? That’s the sneaker festival guy talking. Hardy is asking the opposite question of traditional wine culture: what does wine look like when it reflects the people actually drinking it?

The Future of African Wine

Hardy sees the future as bright. “We are living in a time where there are South African winemakers that are absolutely crazy,” he said. “Seventy-five percent women that are straight killers.”

One of those women is Kiara Scott-Farmer, one of South Africa’s youngest head winemakers and the maker of Say Less Chenin and Leave It With Me, a blend of Syrah, Cinsault, and Grenache. Hardy believes Nice Beverage Company is only the beginning for Black South African participation in wine. He hopes that seeing him, the winemakers he works with, and everyone helping build the business will inspire what comes next.

“We have the generation now that can forge the future of South African wine,” he said. “That can inspire the next generation of winemakers.”

And he has his eye on the rest of the continent. He’s looking for winemakers outside South Africa, and he believes the project can spread a new wine culture across borders that have never been the limit on what African wine could be.

Tiny Pleasures, Vol. 10

Nice Wine Co Ancient Fizz-Eezzy is a Chardonnay sparkler from winemaker Natasha Williams. Taste like citrus peel and green apple.

I Love Boosters is absurd and magical. There are so many singularly chaotic things happening this could have been three different movies but it’s more fun that it was all mashed together like the spin art I used to make at summer camp.

Flowers, always flowers.

My first rep job came out of a restaurant that was supposed to be a no-brainer success.

It was a prominent name from the Bay Area, known for making some of the best bread, and for this morning pastry that felt like a cinnamon roll and a croissant had a baby, with just a little citrus. They expanded into a sun-drenched café, doing sandwiches on that bread, California-fresh food, avocado toast, citrusy tuna sandwiches.

When they came to LA, they decided to supersize the concept.

During the day, it was a café. At night, they dimmed the lights and transitioned into a dinner service that still relied heavily on bread. They brought in a big name in coffee and roasted the beans on site. There was also a famous pizza guy involved who wanted to expand into pasta and other classic Italian dishes.

On paper, it worked.

In reality, it didn’t.

I was hired as a floor sommelier, part of a two-person wine team. And from the beginning, it was hard not to notice the slow days. There were moments when the room felt like it had a rhythm, like something was building—and then the faucet would just shut off. No one would walk in for the rest of the night.

There was something about the lighting that never quite worked. At night, it still felt like you were in a mall food court.

The location didn’t help. It wasn’t a place you stumbled into. You had to want to be there. And this is LA, the place where carb-free was practically invented.

Eventually, my shifts got cut. My tip-outs got smaller.

In an attempt to keep me around, my boss suggested I meet some friends of his. They needed a wine rep in LA.

So I met them. Said the right things. Got the job.

What I didn’t say was that I had no idea how to do it.

I knew the basic outline. You take wines into restaurants, bars, and shops. You find the wine director. You pour. You hope—really hope—they buy something.

What I didn’t know was:

• how to find those people

• how to build a territory

• how to read a commission sheet

• how to afford samples

• how to keep going when no one emails you back

There was no one there to teach me how to do the job I had been hired for.

So I did what I thought was right.

I Googled. I asked people I’d met along the way. I showed up places and hoped I wasn’t interrupting someone’s worst day.

The company I worked for was no help at all, and I did myself no favors by staying quiet because I was scared I’d get fired.

Being a wine rep for a small company is a job no one really tells you how to do. The companies I’ve worked for have been much more like running your own business.

It is your job to find the clients, build the relationships, and email every day, forever.

And most of the time, the answer is no.

Or nothing at all.

What rejection actually taught me

I never made that first job work for me.

The battle was always an uphill slog. I always had another job while I was trying to make it work—selling wine during the day and managing a restaurant at night. Which, for the record, is dumb. Almost impossible. Never ever do it.

But that first job taught me a lot that I’ve carried into my current position.

The biggest lesson—and something I still have to remind myself of constantly, as a sensitive Taurus, an only child, a person who loves being liked—is this:

Don’t take anything personally.

Someone not emailing you back is not a rejection of you. It actually has nothing to do with you.

We are all in our own little worlds, dealing with so many things. An email is often the last thing someone is trying to respond to.

The silence is part of the job.

It doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you followed up once, maybe twice, and now it’s time to back away before you start to fixate.

The point of this job is building relationships. Getting to know a buyer and what they are looking for.

That takes time.

You might taste with someone a few times without them buying anything, and that’s part of the job. One day, that relationship will shift. You’ll get an order. You’ll feel like you can rely on that account.

Even the dreaded “we’re not interested right now”—that’s ok.

“Right now” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

The most important thing is that you keep showing up. Not in a desperate way. Not in a way that makes you feel small. But in a steady, consistent, I’m still here kind of way.

Rejection, I’ve learned, isn’t really rejection.

It’s timing. It’s budgets and bad days and inboxes that are too full.

It’s part of the rhythm.

Some days the faucet is on. Some days it shuts off completely.

My job is to keep showing up with the bottle anyway.

This Week’s Tiny Pleasures, Vol. 9

A few things that are making the cost of gas not feel so bad

I had Ruby Blanca Wines at the Sediment Wine Fair. I was impressed by how complete the wines felt . They were all so easy drinking and confident.

I found myself in Vegas…again.

But I’ve figured out how to do LV in my own way: see a show (this time it was The Atomic Rodeo, a circus-style performance set in an old west brothel) and have a great meal.

This time, dinner was at Cantina Contramar. The Mexico City staple was just as perfect as the first time I had it. We ordered ceviche, wagyu beef tacos, tuna and shrimp tostadas, and a really special sweet potato dish—all capped off with a strawberry meringue cake. Three-ingredient perfection.

The Drama really killed me. I loved it.

Closer to what, I’m still figuring out.

I arrived at Meadowood Napa Valley having rented a car and driven two lovely New Yorkers from SFO, which already felt like an accomplishment.

Did you know that San Francisco drivers pull unnecessarily aggressive maneuvers that would not fly in LA traffic? Because they do.

The minute I parked my rental at Meadowood, I felt like I could relax. It felt like the nice young man who grabbed my bag knew I needed to be guided toward a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and then to my room. He told me everything in the minibar was free, that someone was always available to light my fireplace, and that if I needed anything I could just call. And even with all of that, I still felt a little off. When he left, I ate half a box of dark chocolate almonds.

If this sounds like normal hotel behavior to you, then congratulations—you are used to more luxury than I am.

The Wine Writers’ Symposium is a gathering of people who care enough about wine to write about it. The way wine is interpreted, consumed, and investigated may be different, but we all think wine is important enough to dedicate time to. This year’s symposium was based on the question, “If wine were only art or only science, what would be lost?”

When I say that I came to Napa not feeling like a person, I don’t mean that I felt like some other entity. I know I’m not a ghost, or a frog, or lint. I just mean that sometimes I feel like, despite evidence to the contrary, that I have nothing real to hold on to. My grandmother had just passed, and I was only beginning to mourn. I’d been questioning what I do, if it means anything. Who do I write for and why? Is wine really that important? And the question I think most writers grapple with: what makes me think I’m even good at this?

I don’t make a living as a writer, I sell wine, so why don’t I just do the thing that pays me?

Also, if no one has told you, writing is hard.

I don’t judge anyone by their creative output, or how much money they make, or how close they are to who they thought they would be, except for myself.

I’m a judgy Judy just to me.

The first evening of the Symposium, we were hosted to dinner at Forum. The dining room was airy and comfortable. The mood of sharing and camaraderie began immediately. Each table was given a few different bottles of Napa Valley wine, and we were encouraged to swap bottles with the tables around us. Corison Winery, Mt. Veeder Winery, Dominus Estate. Swaps were made as speakers and fellows got to know each other as peers.

On the first day of sessions, I woke up early but refused to leave the giant bed. I had returned to my room the night before to find it turned down, with a freshly made gummy in a miniature burlap sack on my pillow, along with a poem and a note saying how happy they were that I was there.

I cried.

After I finally got myself out of my room and on the road, I realized I had no idea where I was going. I wandered the grounds as it got later and later. I passed the pool twice. Then a car pulled up and the window rolled down. My first instinct was to run. For a moment, I forgot I was being held tightly by the Meadowood grounds and the Napa air. It was one of the other fellows, and he gave me a ride to where we would be learning for the day.

When I finally sat down with bacon, a muffin, and a cup of black tea, I felt like it was the first day of class. I felt ready for the experience, but I also felt isolated, like I didn’t know how to show up as myself.

I didn’t expect that so much of how I felt to be addressed in the first session of the day.

Osayi Endolyn gave a talk about our collective genius. One of the most important parts of our job is human connection and the relationships that we build. Writing is about listening, investing, and sharing stories. Giving wine and food memory, place, culture, and history.

Next, Elaine Chukan Brown put language to the exact problem that had been vexing me: how do you write about wine for people who don’t already believe wine matters?

If you start from the assumption that your reader cares deeply about wine, you’ll write that way. But most people don’t care about wine like that, even if they enjoy drinking it. And if you’re not careful, you end up writing mostly for other wine writers and industry people.

There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just not what I want to do.

Elaine’s book The Wines of California is a great illustration of writing about wine that puts wine into the context of untold history and gives a voice to the Indigenous populations that were so integral to the history of wine.

We took a walk through the Honig Vineyard. There were sheep grazing in the wildflowers and weeds growing among the vines. We heard about sustainability in Napa Valley, the importance of community collaboration, and sharing what works. Increasing biodiversity and choosing not to till or spray chemicals in your vineyard means nothing without the collective wanting to collaborate.

We had beautiful dinners at the Louise Martini tasting room and drank wines from Ballentine Vineyards, Sequoia Grove Winery, Arkenstone Estate Winery. I laughed and shared stories with the people around me.

Sharing a meal and having a conversation always makes me feel like a person again.

Dorothy J. Gaiter spoke about the art of storytelling. The way silence will allow your subject to open up in ways they may not expect. And that it’s important to ask the hard questions. Not to shy away from getting to the heart of your subject, which speaks to truly getting to know someone.

We took a stop at Continuum Estate, and Professor Alex Maltman talked to us about soil, rocks, and vines. It was a rainy day, there was fog, and while standing in a cave listening to the talk, it felt like I was in a theater again, sharing the experience of performance. I felt at once present while dreaming of what the fictional version of this would be.

The four days of the Symposium had me buzzing with all the things I would write when I was back home.

John Brecher ended our four days together with a keynote speech that brought us back to the question of art and science. He talked about how Sutter Home White Zin (of all things) was a marriage of both. That the success of the product was down to the myth-making. The creation of a story that probably had much more to do with science, but felt more electric through the lens of art. He talked about all of the untold stories that we have the power to tell.

There I go crying again.

I left Meadowood feeling energized. We gathered from all over the country to discuss wine and food, to share meals, and to learn from each other.

I left feeling like a person, a part of the whole.

This Week’s Tiny Pleasures, Vol. 8

A few books I’m excited to read from my fellow Symposium goers

1. Grape Juice by Eliza Dumais

2. The Wines of California by Elaine Chukan Brown

3. Love by the Glass by Dorothy J. Gaiter and John. Brecher

4. Kwéyòl/Creole by Nina Compton with Osayi Endolyn

A New Wine Fair in Los Angeles

On March 29th, Los Angeles is getting a new opportunity to fall in love: the Sediment Wine Festival.

The founder, Tui Lyon, had the idea after visiting several wine fairs across Europe. What she noticed was a difference in feeling.

“They were more fun than the American festivals,” she told me. “Less rigid. Not a lot of food, but more of a vibe. It felt like a party. People sharing bottles, connecting, building community.”

A wine fair is exactly what it sounds like: winemakers, importers, or their reps pouring their wines directly for the public or for other wine professionals. It’s one of the few spaces where you can taste widely, ask questions, and actually connect with the people behind the bottle.

There are the large-scale fairs — ProWein or RAW Wine Fair — which can feel exciting, if not a little overwhelming. Then there are the smaller, more regional fairs like The Festival of the Undiscovered Grape or Wine Fare SF.

I tend to prefer the smaller ones: a more digestible number of wines to taste, and enough time and space to actually ask a few questions. To linger a little. To have a conversation.

Sediment is aiming to create a party: a space where younger winemakers can see their wines in a different atmosphere. Where there’s still a focus on the wine, but also room for lightness and curiosity. A place that feels less like a transaction and more like a gathering.

Who the Fair Centers

What felt most important to Tui from the beginning was who the fair would center.

Sediment is intentionally highlighting women-led, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC producers — a reflection of the communities that have always contributed to the wine world, but haven’t always been given equal visibility within it.

“I want to celebrate those communities and their contribution to the wine landscape,” she told me.

That intention extends to the kind of wines being poured. Sediment is focused on natural wine, broadly defined, but thoughtfully considered. For Tui, that means producers working with organic farming, no chemical inputs, minimal manipulation in the cellar, and limited or no added sulfur during fermentation. The emphasis is also on smaller, independent producers making wine outside of corporate structures, often with a deeply personal connection to the land.

There will also be sake producers in the mix, expanding the conversation beyond wine while staying rooted in similar values of craft and care.

When I asked why natural wine culture continues to resonate right now, her answer was immediate.

“It feels like ours,” she said. “It’s newer.”

The tradition of natural winemaking may be ancient, but the culture surrounding it feels fresh, shaped by younger people, new ideas, and a different way of talking about wine.

Representation also plays a role in making natural wine feel a bit more accessible. When people see winemakers who look like them, or share similar cultural references, wine starts to feel less stodgy. Less like something you have to learn how to “get right,” and more like something you can just enjoy.

Producers are leaning into that shift and talking more openly about farming, soil, and place, but also about feeling. About vibe. About why a wine matters beyond what’s in the glass.

Why This Matters Now

Sediment arrives at a moment when wine culture is actively being reshaped by younger drinkers, by more diverse voices, and by a growing desire for spaces that feel less formal and more connected.

Wine fairs have always been about discovery. But the question now is: discovery for whom, and in what kind of environment?

On March 29th, Sediment offers one answer. Not just a tasting, but a gathering shaped by intention that reflects the people building the future of wine, and invites everyone else to be part of it.

This Week’s Tiny Pleasures, Vol. 7-Inspired by Tui

“At this time of year, when it’s warm, but not hot, I love to go for chilled medium bodied wines, something with complexity, but also light and refreshing to drink on a warm afternoon. Maryam from Azizam Wines is making exactly that, they are really interesting wines with unique flavor profiles, but also just so crushable!”

“In my spare time I do ceramics, and one of my favorite ceramicists right now is Xanthe Somers. They make the most fabulous large sculptural works that embody everything I love: They are colorful, weird, and expressive on their own, but also rooted in something much larger than the work itself. Her work explores themes of post-colonial domesticity, overconsumption and eco-racism, providing a critical reading of the extractive economies of the global south.”

“My sister is an artist and I recently performed in one of her pieces “The Uncertain Behavior of Clouds”, and it’s given me a new appreciation for these fluffy, majestic cuties in the sky. I’ve been looking up more, and it’s been refreshing to appreciate something on a deeper level, that I’ve been looking at my whole life.”

A few months later, we hopped on a very chaotic Google Meet (grainy video, audio delay, my laptop fighting for its life) to talk about her journey into wine, Armenian winemaking heritage, what the future of wine might look like, and—because balance is important—the joy of crunchy chillable reds, vampire novels, and Jersey Shore.

LaShea: What is your full name? What are your pronouns, and where do you call home? Rose: My name is Rose Nemet (she/they). “Home” lives in a few places for me. The Bay Area is home. Oakland is home. And what I call the “deep cut East Bay” — the far eastern side of Contra Costa County, where we first started our garage wine project — is also home.

And then there’s our vineyard in the Sierra Foothills, which feels like a wine home in a very important way.

L: What is your role at Kareen?
R: I always say I wear hats, tiaras, beanies, and baseball caps.

My brother is the head winemaker, and I do everything in between, from marketing, sales, and business development to operations, vineyard work, and cellar support. In 2021, I became deeply involved in production decisions and even took a sabbatical from my 9–5 to work a harvest at an organic commercial winery in Chile.

So I’m assistant winemaker, farmer, sales director, event planner… I do just about everything.

L: What made you and your family move from New York to California?
R: Our journey into wine is rooted in our Armenian identity. Armenia is part of an ancient wine culture; there are hundreds of indigenous Armenian grapes, and wine is ingrained in our ancestral memory.

We also spent time in Georgia, another ancient wine region. During the Soviet era, Armenia was pushed toward brandy while Georgia was allowed to keep more of its wine identity, which disrupted Armenian winemaking. Seeing that renaissance emerge again in the last couple of decades really spoke to us as a family.

We immigrated to New York City, then to California when my brother and I were teenagers. One of the first things we said as a family was, “This is incredible wine-growing land. What if we tried to make wine?”

We bought a house in East Contra Costa and planted grapes in the backyard. That’s very us, we don’t do things casually. We started making wine in 2010, became a licensed winery in 2018, and launched our brand in 2019. It was about reclaiming our heritage and exploring how Armenian sensibility expresses itself in California soil.

L: Why did you choose to acquire vineyard land rather than open a tasting room like a lot of young wineries do?
R: We considered three options:

1. A production facility

2. A tasting room or co-op space

3. Viticulture and land

Land felt the most honest, the most aligned.

“You can’t make good wine with bad grapes.”

Owning and farming 40 acres in the Sierra Foothills let us root ourselves in the full cycle from soil to bottle. It’s more work, but it’s the work that matters.

L: Was there a particular wine or moment that really shifted something for you?
R: It’s really a couple of things. If I trace my love of wine back, it probably started with celebration wines from when I was a kid—sparkling wine, champagne, those special-occasion moments. But what truly crystallized my love of wine and my excitement for winemaking was realizing that good sparkling wine doesn’t only come from Champagne.

Years ago, I tried a Crémant from Alsace—a brut with this beautiful balance of acidity and dosage—and I remember thinking, oh my God, this tastes like Champagne. Learning it wasn’t was a total SpongeBob moment for me, like realizing wine is galaxies. It showed me that incredible sparkling wine can come from places outside the one region we’re always taught to associate with it. That really shifted my understanding of what’s possible, especially as we’re excited about becoming a sparkling producer down the line.

Another thing that gets me really excited about wine is discovering new—or rather, ignored—narratives in winemaking. For example, Gaza was once one of the most important Phoenician ports exporting wine to Rome, and what’s now France, and Greece. These aren’t untold stories; they’re just left out of the dominant wine narrative. I’m inspired by that, and it motivates me to be a voice in this space and to make really delicious wine that helps shift those narratives.

L: Let’s get into your journey. What has been the most memorable moment in wine for you so far?
R: There are so many, but one really stands out. And not to make this a bummer, but it’s a hard memory that I feel I have to share.

I would be so remiss if I didn’t talk about Artsakh and the loss of indigenous Armenian land, which happened very recently in 2020. As some background for anyone who doesn’t know: in 2020, Armenian indigenous lands were invaded and stolen by Azerbaijan with the help of Turkey.

The Armenian Highlands have around 400 registered indigenous Armenian grapes, and probably a thousand more that aren’t even mapped or documented. But Artsakh, to the south, was its own incredibly unique and beautifully fertile terroir—distinct from the Highlands, deeply tied to history, and home to grapes and winemaking practices that go back millennia.

The future of that land as a wine region is now uncertain, and that grief has stayed with me. In September 2023, Armenians were forced off their indigenous land. It was the first time in thousands of years that there were no Armenians living in Artsakh. That is a very deep, difficult memory for me.

But I believe we will be back. Armenians will return to our land, and there will be wine made there again. I hold onto that.

L: Thank you for sharing that. I want to shift a little while staying in the realm of what inspires you. How do you stay inspired when the work — and the world — is heavy?
R: A couple of things keep me inspired. First, there’s that old adage “ABC—always be closing,” but for me it’s ABL: always be learning. The wine world is everywhere—centuries of tradition, ancestral practice, land, connection, stewardship. That is what keeps me enraptured, excited, and motivated.

And honestly, having access to farming feels like cheating, in the best way. Every time I’m in the vineyard, I learn something new. We’re doing an R&D project bringing an indigenous Armenian grape to California to see how it expresses itself here, which means learning about grafting, growth, and soil. Every day, I set aside time to understand something—how to approach a seafood-focused restaurant with our Chenin or Viognier, more research, more tasting. Every meal is a classroom. Every moment is a learning moment.

What also inspires me is the bigger mission—shifting narratives. We’ve spent so much of this conversation talking about ancient winemaking, indigenous varieties, and stories that aren’t widely known. That excites me every day.

And on top of that, my family has always been made up of gatherers and conveners. Even when we first immigrated to the U.S. with very little, everyone gathered in our tiny one-bedroom walk-up in Brooklyn. Friends, neighbors—whoever could fit. That spirit of community and connection is still what drives me and inspires me.

L: What do you think the future of wine looks like?
R: I think the future of wine is tied to what’s happening culturally right now. Younger generations aren’t going out as much, they’re not celebrating or gathering the way previous generations did, and that’s connected to bigger societal issues—economics, overwhelm, the moment we’re living in.

But that’s also what makes wine interesting. It isn’t just a luxury commodity; it’s hospitality, community, and connection. So the question becomes: how do we respond to what people actually need right now?

There will always be a time and place for a big, bold Napa Cab, and I love those wines. But I’m really excited by younger drinkers saying, “We want something else.” When you look at things like the roughly 70% drop in what Gen Z spends on going out compared to millennials, or just the general sense of austerity and inflation, it’s clear people want wines that feel lighter—both in style and in approachability.

So yes, I think the future of wine is moving toward lighter, fresher styles, wines that are joyful and drinkable but still thoughtful and well-made.

This Week’s Tiny Pleasures, Vol. 6-Inspired by Rose

Kareen 2024 Cinsault: The Cinsault comes from one of the oldest vineyards in the world, the Bechthold Vineyard, planted in 1886. The wine is dumb good! Light-bodied, with aromas of violets and bark, and flavors of chocolate-covered berries. Just a touch of tannin. I drank it in the desert, under the stars, and it was perfect.

The Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas
A moody, romantic, slightly spooky historical novel set during the Mexican-American War… with vampires.
“It’s got a love story, a mysterious creature wreaking havoc, fog, chaparral—just a really fun read.”-Rose

Perfect Days (Japan)
A quiet, meditative film Rose watched start-to-finish without touching her phone—rare these days.
“It’s about gratitude and being present. Just beautiful.”-Rose

Binh Minh Quan (Oakland)

How do we live with wine in 2025?

There was a time when “living with wine” meant knowing vintages by heart, collecting bottles you’d never open, and pretending to understand the technical language a sommelier used to describe a wine. That era’s over.

In 2025, living with wine means something else. Wine drinkers have let go of tradition and are embracing what makes wine part of our daily lives. We want to know who is making the wine and why. We care about the environment and the stories behind each bottle. We want wines to drink with friends, wines for occasions big and small. We want tasting notes that feel personal and make sense.

Wine should be about enjoyment, connection, and curiosity. We want to live with wine in a way that feels fun, honest, and human.

It’s about drinking what you love, supporting the people who make it with heart, and letting a glass (or can, or cup) meet you where you are.

So here’s how to do it.

1. Don’t Collect — Curate

Forget cellars. Think shelves, fridges, or that messy little corner of your living room. Living with wine in 2025 means surrounding yourself with bottles that make you curious, not anxious. The “right” collection is the one that reflects you — maybe a little natural, a little classic, a little “I bought this because the label was cute.”

Keep one bottle that feels like a true treat, something you’ll open when something wonderful happens, or someone special comes over. But there’s absolutely no reason not to pop a bottle on a Tuesday night.

2. Drink Local — and Explore Something Weird

There are incredible wines being made all over California. This summer, I visited Lodi and tasted beautiful wines from winemakers who fully embrace the region’s climate and terroir. There are over 100 different grape varieties grown in Lodi, and the winemakers there are having fun with that diversity.

The Central Coast, Amador County, Anderson Valley, California, is full of regions growing unique grapes that make remarkable wines.

And don’t stop there.
Drink Oregon. Drink the Finger Lakes. Drink Virginia.
There’s exciting wine coming from Valle de Guadalupe. And if you’re able, take a trip to one of these regions. It’s one of the best ways to fall in love with wine: standing among the vines and talking to the people who make it.

Explore beyond the traditional European canon. Support small growers in overlooked regions.

3. Talk to Your Local Wine Pro

Skip the guessing. One of the best ways to discover something new and exciting is to ask your local wine shop clerk. They see every bottle that comes through the door. They know who buys what — and who comes back for more.

When you’re out to eat and staring at the wine list, talk to the sommelier. They’ve tasted every bottle on that list. They know the producers, the style, and where the magic is hiding. Tell them what you like — and what kind of night you’re having.

Any somm worth their salt will be thrilled to take on the challenge of finding you the perfect bottle.

4. Pair Wine with Your Life, Not Your Dinner

Sometimes dinner just isn’t interesting enough to pair with. Last night I had roasted broccoli, chickpeas, and quinoa with a drizzle of tahini. Was it good? Eh. It was sustenance. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t open a bottle.Even when dinner is just a bowl of whatever, you can still pour something that makes the evening feel a little more alive.

Try sparkling to go with your favorite tv show, skin-contact orange for your Sunday reset, or Lambrusco for any moment that needs a little fun and fizz.

Wine isn’t about rules anymore, it’s about rhythm.

5. Learn the Story Behind the Label

There’s something undeniably romantic about knowing who’s behind your bottle of wine. Hearing why a winemaker chose to take on this wild mix of agriculture, craft, passion, and a little luck—it never gets old.

People care about vintage because wine changes so dramatically year to year. So much is outside the winemaker’s control, and yet every season, they put their heads down and make something meaningful with what the environment gives them.

The amount of skill it takes to produce a bottle of wine is astonishing. And when we’re talking small wineries—run by one person, a family, or a couple of friends—that effort feels even more impressive.

Learning who’s behind your wine turns the bottle into a story. That’s powerful.

6. Stay Curious (and Hydrated)

The wine world is vast. There will always be a new grape, a new region, a new winemaker doing something unexpected. The best way to live with wine in 2025 is to stay open—to stories, to change, to taste.

Curiosity is essential. And yes, drink a glass of water between each glass of wine.

Living with wine in 2025 isn’t about knowing everything. Drinking wine doesn’t have to come with an education attached. Just drink what you like, when you want.

Any night, any occasion, any vibe can be the right time to enjoy a good glass.

This Week’s Tiny Pleasures, Vol. 5

It’s hard out here, but these things made me smile.

Aslina Cabernet Sauvignon tastes of fresh red and black fruit, with balanced acidity and velvety tannins. Made by Ntsiki Biyela, South Africa’s first Black female winemaker (from Zululand) and founder of Aslina, named after her grandmother.

Ricotta dumplings in Fontina brodo with charred broccolini from Bar Etoile. A perfect little pleasure: salty, fatty, crunchy. The kind of bite that makes you close your eyes and smile.

My kind of love poem.

Justin’s story moves from a D.C. dining table to the cellars of California and beyond. It’s a story about curiosity, persistence, and finding your own lane in an industry that’s learning to open its doors wider through organizations created to support and uplift BIPOC wine professionals.

LaShea: What’s your full name, pronouns, and where do you call home?
Justin: I’m Justin Michelle Ward Trabue (she/her). I live in Napa and make my wines in Sonoma, but I’m a fourth-generation Washington, D.C. native. D.C. is my forever home.

L: Your current role?
J: I’m the owner and head wine witch of Ward Four Wines. I founded the brand in 2021, made my first wines in 2022 (five barrels, five varieties), and sold out that first year. I am now a fully grant-funded winery and have a biannual wine club that I affectionately call the Spell Craft Society.

L: Take us through your wine journey.
J: Wine started at home. My parents loved it, and D.C.’s restaurants were my first classroom in hospitality. In high school, a black sommelier came to our house and said Wine can take you anywhere. After graduation, my dad and I drove cross-country to San Luis Obispo so I could study the wine business at Cal Poly.

I learned production by doing: a season living on an organic apple orchard/pumpkin patch, then study abroad in Australia (classroom during the week; Barossa, Adelaide Hills, and McLaren Vale on Fridays during harvest). Back in California, I interned at Lumen Wines and stayed five years, rising to assistant winemaker. In 2019, I worked a New Zealand harvest; later, I moved north to the Napa/Sonoma area to deepen the technical side in a lab role at a Napa winery. Those logistics now power Ward Four.

In 2022, before my first vintage, I went to South Africa to work a harvest at Almenkerk Wine Estate in Elgin with an all-Black cellar, vineyard, and hospitality team which was a powerful experience that affirmed the kind of community I want to build.

L: What is the wine or region that changed everything?

J: Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir is my first love. A recent Becky Wasserman & Co. scholarship took me to Burgundy for a week, which only deepened it. My mentor Lane Tanner (first woman winemaker in Santa Barbara) shaped my palate: intentional, earlier picks, wines that are lighter in frame but full of flavor and balance.

L: Your most memorable wine moment so far?
J: 2019 in New Orleans at Radical Exchange: Resistance Served, organized by Ashtin Berry. It connected wine/spirits with hospitality’s history—tipping culture, labor, self-worth—and it was my first time building community in wine that looked like me and had shared similar experiences. I left reinvigorated and gained lifelong friends.

There are so many amazing organizations, including the 280 Project, The Version Project, Black Wine Professionals, Asian Wine Professionals, Co Fermented, The Vinguard—and it’s beautiful to watch.

L: How do you stay inspired?
J: Ward Four is personal. Every wine is inspired by a family member and paired with a movie/TV show/song. People see themselves in those references; it sparks conversation and community.

L: How has your relationship with wine evolved?
J: I was often told I “belonged” in hospitality—not production. So I built my own lane. I haul my fruit, harvest, manage ferments, rack, bottle, hand-label—the whole thing. Ward Four is my love letter to wine and proof that being social and community-oriented doesn’t preclude getting down-and-dirty in the cellar.

L: What’s exciting you in wine right now?
J: Intentionality and visibility—especially around vineyard stewards: working conditions, pay, safety. These conversations weren’t happening at this volume 5–10 years ago. They matter.

L: Best piece of advice you’ve received?
J: If you work for someone, ask how you can grow. If there’s no path there, ask them to connect you elsewhere. Smaller wineries may not pay like the big groups, but they can still champion you. Be honest about your needs—it opens doors.

L: Leave us with a recommendation—wine, culture, anything.
J: I’m deep in White Lotus (Season 3) and Yellowjackets. Enfield Wines just dropped a winter release I snagged and can’t wait to open. Movie-wise, Heart Eyes gave me blissful throwback slasher vibes (think early-2000s Valentine), and Blink Twice was a wild ride.

Also: long live funny horror!

Follow Ward Four Wines: Instagram Website

This Week’s Tiny Pleasures, Vol. 4- Justin Inspired

A few things that kept me from becoming completely cynical

Ward Four Muscat Blanc (Cecchini Ranch, Contra Costa, California) — Grown on old clay loam soils at Cecchini Ranch, where the vines have been farmed organically and thoughtfully for years, this dry, skin-contact Muscat feels like sunshine caught in a glass. It smells of white tea and honeysuckle, and tastes of citus pith and white peach, bright and textured.

Justin introduced me to the Country Life Vlog when I visited her over the summer. As we tasted through her wines, the videos played softly in the background. Set in the Caucasus Mountains of Azerbaijan, each episode follows the matriarch of the Ramikhanov family as she cooks or harvests on a beautifully grand scale. All the sound is ambient—the wind in the trees, the occasional animal noise, the rhythm of whatever tool she’s using. She’s often visited by bunnies and a crow who seems to know she’ll share a few bites—it’s all very Snow White. Eventually, the whole family, including their dog and her husband (who’s usually busy with his own big project), comes together around the table. The videos are both soothing and genuinely exciting to watch. I’d recommend starting with Village Strawberry Cake & Homemade Strawberry Pastila Recipe and just letting smooth brain take over.

Heart Eyes was another recommendation from Justin, and it was fantastic. Like her, I’m a big fan of horror-comedy, and this one hits the sweet spot. I know Halloween has passed, but it would also make great Valentine’s Day viewing. The premise: a killer who preys on couples every year on February 14th, and two strangers whose instant chemistry puts them in his sights. It’s fun, campy, and within the first scene, I completely understood why a winemaker might have recommended it.

Sleeping in the back of a fast-moving van is a skill I didn’t know I possessed until my trip to Greece. I’ve always been able to fall asleep in uncomfortable circumstances, but dozing off in a twelve-person passenger van as it climbed precariously up a mountain toward a secluded hilltop town was new to me.

For a week, I had the chance to explore Greek wine across the mainland. It was technically a work trip, so I was given a cursory itinerary — enough to know when I needed to be somewhere and when it would all be over. I knew that each day would bring a new winery, a few familiar bottles, and a handful of discoveries. I knew I’d visit family farms, tour small cellars, and drink a lot of wine. What I didn’t know was how much this trip would change the way I thought about Greek wine.

Greece has one of the oldest winemaking traditions in the world. Thousands of years ago, wine was fermented and stored in clay pots called amphorae. The ancient Greeks developed methods of vine training and fermentation that they later shared through trade across the Mediterranean. Many of those early techniques — like fermenting with wild yeast, aging in clay, and relying on the rhythm of the land rather than chemical intervention — are being rediscovered today.

The modern natural wine movement in Greece isn’t so much a reinvention as it is a return. A new generation of winemakers is looking backward to move forward, embracing the ruggedness of the land and the resilience of their indigenous grapes. Across the mainland and islands, small producers are farming organically, harvesting by hand, and letting fermentation happen naturally.

There were a lot of highlights on this trip. There was the five-hour lunch that drifted into dinner, where we tried wines from Kontozisis, an organic grower in Karditsa, a rural town in the region of Thessaly. Andreas Kontozisis and his partner Aphrodite Tousia make beautiful wines from grapes like Roditis and Limniona, a red grape grown only in Thessaly. Aphrodite led us through a tasting of their new sparkling white wine, the Sun Wines, and their A-Grafo line.

We ate a salad with thirteen different ingredients, all grown in the restaurant’s garden. Later, we zoomed down the winding mountain, full and slightly sun-dazed.

We visited Anna Halkia in Nemea, the largest wine region in Greece. We toured her small vineyard where she grows two of the hero grapes of the region, Assyrtiko and Agirtiko. She told us stories about the vines she lost to disease and the local grower who keeps trying to buy her land. He calls her his “Amazon” because of her strength; she calls him “squishy,” nose turned up in disdain. Somehow that conversation led to her family serving us grilled meats, moussaka, and gemista—baked vegetables stuffed with rice and herbs. Alongside the home cooked meal we had the pleasure of tasting her wines, made with organic grapes. My favorites was a five day skin macerated Assyrtiko that tasted like citrus, dried herbs and white flowers.

We met a quiet winemaker in Evia, Nikos Mitzifiris, who works with the local red variety Vradiano (known as “the night grape”). Nikos took us to his parents’ house, where they fed us homemade ice cream and glyko tou koutaliou — traditional candied fruit served in a small spoon on a decrotive glass plate.

There was the whole family who came out to greet us at Papras. We smelled grapes on the vine, tasted them right there in the field, and later opened the bottles they would become. We drank Roditis, Assyrtiko, Malagousia, Limnio, and Xinomavro. We were fed so well everywhere we went—fresh fish pulled from the sea that morning, pies filled with spiced meat, and more figs.

It’s easy to think of Greek wine as coming only from the islands. Sun-drenched bottles of Malvasia and salty white blends that taste like the ocean breeze. But there’s just as much magic inland. There are mountain wines, like the ones we tasted at Kontozisis in Thessaly, made from grapes that grow high above sea level where nights are cool and the air smells like pine and vineyards tucked into valleys. We stood in seaside towns one day and on rocky hillsides the next, and every landscape had its own voice, its own kind of beauty in the glass.

Greece reminded me to slow down. To let meals stretch into hours, to say yes to another glass, to pay attention to the place I’m in and the people who made it possible.

This Week’s Tiny Pleasures, Vol. 3- Greek Travel Edition

A few things that kept me from screaming into a pillow

Nikos Mitzifiris’ wines have been certified organic for more than twenty years. He’s never used commercial yeast or additives. A quiet, patient man, he learned to farm from his father, and the vines at both his vineyard and his family’s home grow wild.

He works primarily with Vradiano, the “night grape,” a red variety indigenous to Evia. His cuvée, Lilas, is named after the nearby Lilas River. It’s what he considers his rosé. Spending three days on the skins before resting in stainless steel. The result is a light, dry, herbal red with a freshness that feels alive.

The wine’s place of origin is as layered as its flavor: it’s made from vines growing in the Lilantine field, a landscape once scarred by erosion from the ceramic industry and even ancient wars. In Nikos’s hands, that land is restored, and the wine tastes like patience rewarded.

I can’t say enough about the food I had in Greece. I had the great fortune of eating so many homemade meals that highlighted the quality of the ingredients. I tried Greek dishes I’d never had before — and the juiciest roast chicken of my life, served on a bed of lemon potatoes.

When it comes to restaurant meals, though, one stands out: Islandsia, a modern Greek restaurant in Athens. The space used to be a candle shop, so there are beeswax candles everywhere you look. The restaurant’s aesthetic reminded me of the dinner scene in Beetlejuice — modernity through an ’80s lens — all silver accents, moody lighting, and a touch of surreal glamour. Between courses, servers even offered a silver box of cigarettes to each table.

The food was beautiful: honeycomb with salty cheese, taramosalata (a dip made of cured fish roe), and steamed amberjack with chanterelles in a rich, briny broth. It’s the kind of place I’d go back to again and again.

My love for cats has really grown since I moved in with my own cardboard box aficionado. That’s made me pay closer attention to stray cats — how they strut, nap wherever they please, and only let you pet them if you’re chill. Greece had some of the best stray cats I’ve ever seen, each with their own distinct personality. There were kittens that slept together in a little pile, and one tough-looking cat who seemed like he might’ve lost an eye in battle. There were cute cats and scrappy ones, lounging on doorsteps, rooftops, and café chairs. They go where they want, when they want, and I respect that so much.

My favorite Greek proverb: Δεν μπορείς να έχεις και την πίτα ολόκληρη και τον σκύλο χορτάτο You can’t have your pie whole and your dog fed

I used to be afraid to drive on the freeway. Now it feels like that’s all I do.

This summer has been a crash (no pun intended) course in driving the freeway alone with my anxieties. When I drive, I sit straight up; it makes me feel like I have control over the road. My fear of the freeway has given way to my fear of going over 80 miles per hour, so I try to hold steady at 75.

I am a wine rep in LA, which means I’m a door-to-door salesperson of sorts. I visit restaurants, bars, and wine shops (anywhere that sells wine) and hope to sell them my wares. I represent wines from all over the world, with the common thread being that they’re all small production. I sell wine made by people who might live on a tiny plot of land that yields just enough grapes for a few hundred bottles, or by winemakers who buy fruit from growers and transform it in a small cellar or shared space. These are not the ex-Disney CEOs who retire to a vineyard. They are not the ones who get rich off wine.

I spend so much time on the freeway because my territory extends outside of LA County into Santa Barbara, Ojai, Ventura, and the Central Coast. I’ve made it my mission to conquer those areas as best as I can. And honestly, driving that far makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. The act of driving alone feels like work to my brain.

Even though I was born and raised in LA, I didn’t learn how to drive until I was 30. At 16, my mother tried to teach me, but she was so anxious about me being on the road that she yelled, gasped, and shamed me out of driving. At 18, I moved to New York for college and spent the next 12 years never even thinking about cars. Public transportation — and the occasional nondescript black car driven by a stranger — was good enough for me.

When I finally packed up my little dog and moved back to LA, the first thing I had to do was learn to drive. My mom had already tried. That went badly. So I asked my dad to teach me. He’d already taught his other daughters, and he was calmer, more patient. Where was he when I was 16 and needed him? You’d have to ask him.

After failing my driver’s test once, I passed on the second try and brought my license home. My dad offered me my first car — a 2002, rusted and busted convertible Mustang. I drove that tank for about seven years and, in all that time, only got on the freeway twice. Both times were by accident. Both times, I screamed and had to talk myself down until I could exit. Otherwise, I stuck to side streets no matter how long it took. Luckily, I was surrounded by enablers, including my boyfriend, who loves to drive and didn’t mind errands or long, meandering trips through the mountains.

But I knew the freeway would eventually be unavoidable. I live in LA. I said goodbye to the Mustang and bought a new car with lane-departure warnings, blind-spot alerts, and all the beeps. It gave me the confidence to finally merge.

Now I enter the freeway with confidence. I change lanes with vim. And from that driver’s seat, mile after mile, I’ve had time to take in what’s happening across this city.

In Los Angeles, I’ve found a food and beverage industry waiting to catch a break. The city has been battered — pandemic, strikes, fires, ICE raids, economic downturn. Everyone is trying to make sense of what to do. A wine shop owner told me he lost 20% of his club members because the film and TV industry hasn’t recovered. A restaurant owner confessed she feels terrible for cutting shifts, but it’s the only way to keep payroll afloat. We’ve watched closures pile up. Restaurants too delicious to fail have failed. Fine dining has scaled back. Chicken wings and a bar burger might be enough to keep people coming through the door.

.

But then I head north. I stop in Ojai or Ventura, and the air is cooler there, the ocean breeze more constant. There’s more optimism in places where people are used to the ebb and flow of tourist season.

And everywhere — in LA, in Ojai, on the Central Coast — the thing that never stops is people opening new businesses. It seems impossible. The costs should topple anyone who tries. But they keep at it, hopeful and excited about creating something new. That’s one of the perks of my job: the jolt of hope that comes from meeting someone with a vision for their community. A restaurant, a wine shop, a curated market — these might feel like luxuries, but can we really live without them?

Driving the freeways this summer reminded me that even when the city feels uncertain, there’s movement. Restaurants adapt, shops hold on, winemakers keep making bottles worth opening. The road ahead might be bumpy, but it’s still wide open — and that feels like hope to me.

This Week’s Tiny Pleasures, Vol. 2

A few things that momentarily distracted me from **gestures wildly**

🍷 Camins 2 Dreams is Tara and Mireia, a wife-and-wife team making beautiful wines out of Santa Barbara. They source their fruit exclusively from vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills — a small, wind-swept appellation in Santa Barbara County known for its cool climate and fierce sense of place.

Their focus is on minimal-intervention, natural winemaking, and collaborating with growers who share their values: respect for the land, the people who farm it, and the rhythms of nature. The Carignan for this bottling comes from Happy Canyon Vineyard.

I love how plush this wine feels. It’s all tart red fruit, spice, and jasmine. It’s very fall, the kind of wine you want to drink while wearing a cozy sweater.

🍿The best thing I watched this week: Inside a Hidden LA Greenhouse Full of the World’s Rarest Plants | Architectural Digest.

It’s a peek inside a place that almost no one gets to see, a greenhouse tucked among a cluster of nondescript industrial buildings in DTLA. Visitors are rare, and none of the plants are for sale. The space houses more than 10,000 of the rarest plants in the world. One of them, Haageocereus tenuis, is nearly extinct in the wild. I went down a little rabbit hole afterward and discovered you can actually buy one at the Cactus Store Studio, if you happen to have $250,000 lying around for your collection.

😍 I picked up Care and Feeding because Laurie Woolever was Mario Batali’s assistant at the height of his orange-Croc, thin-ponytail-wearing fame. She was also Anthony Bourdain’s assistant until he passed. What initially drew me in was the tea — and it absolutely delivered on that.

It also delivered on the nostalgia I feel as someone who worked in restaurants in New York in the early aughts. What I didn’t expect was how honestly she writes about her own addictions. Her mistakes are laid out so plainly, so infuriatingly, that it’s hard to look away. It made me nostalgic for restaurant chaos — but grateful I don’t have to polish flatware or cry in a walk-in anymore.

Thanks for reading!

If you enjoyed this story, I’d love for you to:

• 💌 Subscribe to get new essays straight to your inbox.

• 🌐 Visit my blog, Lavern’s Fine Wine

I named this space for her, not because she drinks wine (she doesn’t), but because she represents something essential: the clarity of knowing what gives you pleasure and holding onto it without apology. That’s what I want this newsletter to be — not an exercise in expertise, but a record of joy, taste, and curiosity.

Growing a Sense of Taste

I learned about taste growing up on the Westside of Los Angeles. My favorite food was a hard-shell taco with shredded iceberg lettuce and grated cheddar cheese. I had no idea I was learning about texture, sweetness, fat, and salt—a simple pleasure.

I moved to New York to become a playwright because I wanted to write like Caryl Churchill and Suzan-Lori Parks. I got an education in culture, art, film, and also in how to pair a glass of Syrah with a medium-rare steak—a simple pleasure.

New York was where I got my first restaurant job. And my second. And my third. I loved working in restaurants: the camaraderie, the excitement, the righteous annoyance at people who didn’t understand how important dinner service is—the symphony of it.

I avoided wine service at first. It felt pretentious and expensive, like something not for me. And then I took a mandatory sherry class at a restaurant I was later fired from, and I fell in love. This was a new taste, a completely new world. I had a teacher who made wine sound cool and interesting. So I added what felt like another antiquated interest to my roster.

• Plays? Check.

• Wine? Check.

Why This Substack

By now, you might be wondering what this has to do with my Substack. And this is what I say to that: it has everything to do with it.

This is what my Substack is about.

I’ll be writing about wine. As someone who sells wine as a rep for a distributor and importer, who is hired to create wine lists, and who has been a sommelier in Los Angeles restaurants, I have opinions. I promise to keep them straightforward and fun.

But I’ll also be writing about the movies I love and the shows I watch. I’ll write about what I cook at home and what I eat when I go out. I want to carve out a corner of Substack that celebrates women and BIPOC people in food and wine.

Mostly, I’ll write about pleasure. The small ones. The simple ones. The ones that add up to a life. If that sounds like something you want more of, subscribe below and join me.

This Week’s Tiny Pleasures, Vol. 1

A few things that kept me from shaking my fists at the sky

🍷I love the wines of Vinos Pijoan, and I recently had the 2024 vintage of La Poubelle. The wine is 100% Sauvignon Blanc, which gives it that bright, aromatic lift, but during aging, it was left untopped, allowing a little oxygen in and adding a subtle oxidative edge. It’s Sauvignon Blanc, but with a kick.

Silvana Pijoan, a second-generation winemaker in Valle de Guadalupe, is very, very cool. First came classical dance, then sommelier training, then a winemaking degree in Mexico City. In 2016, she bottled her first natural wine, Vino Pelón. Now she’s taken over her father’s vineyards. In response to Baja’s extreme heat and drought, she made a bold move: removing an entire hillside of old, underperforming vines and replanting it with Mission grapes. These ancient varietals, brought by Spanish missionaries 500 years ago, are proving remarkably drought-tolerant and climate-resilient.

🍿 “I’m interested in one thing and one thing only, and that’s bent coppers”-Superintendent Ted Hastings

I love a police procedural. I’ve seen every episode of Law & Order and the entire SVU franchise, some of them more than once. I’ve also watched (and rewatched) Homicide: Life on the Street, which is excellent television. But the corner of the genre I’m most loyal to? British cop shows.

Over there, beat cops don’t carry guns, so there’s far less shooting. The bad guys plan their crimes over a cup of tea. And they give as much airtime to scenes of detectives furiously filling out paperwork as they do to police chases. Right now, I’m watching Line of Duty, a show about cops investigating other cops; specifically, AC-12, the anti-corruption unit, as they try to uncover a sprawling network of bent officers in bed with organized crime. First they have to figure out who “the Caddy” is, then who’s pulling his strings, and then who’s pulling theirs. It’s essentially a Russian nesting doll of corruption

😍 The Problem with Travel by Ada Limón.