Beyond the Bottle: Why Intention Matters

Think about what it actually takes to make a bottle of wine. Land. Money. Training. The right connections. For most of wine's history, that combination of things was only available to a narrow slice of people: mostly European, mostly male, mostly already wealthy. And so the world of wine was shaped, almost entirely, by them.

But that's slowly changing, and where you spend your wine dollars plays a real role in how fast it happens. In a world where consumer behavior around alcohol consumption has drastically shifted, the time for the industry to think differently is now.

The Landscape: A Beautiful Industry with a Representation Problem

Traditionally, the wine world knows how to sell a dream to a specific demographic: golden hour over rolling vineyards, the romance of winemaking, and a glass that somehow tastes like a place. A lot of that is real and genuinely beautiful.

But when you zoom out, the picture gets complicated and does not always translate across diverse audiences. Fewer than 1% of U.S. winery owners and head winemakers are BIPOC. Black-owned wineries make up less than 1% of the more than 11,000 wineries in this country. Furthermore, while women buy roughly half of all the wine sold in the U.S., they hold only about 14% of head winemaker positions.

The romance is real. So is the gap. Younger, more socially conscious consumers are demanding access over exclusivity. Inclusion and storytelling over pretense.

What Happens When You Buy with IntentionMore than you might think!

For starters, most small, independent producers don't have the cushion of venture capital or generational wealth to fall back on. Your bottle purchase isn't just a nice gesture, it's infrastructure. It keeps the lights on, pays the team, and funds the next harvest.

Beyond the economics, there's something harder to quantify but just as real: when more kinds of people make wine, wine itself gets more interesting. Different grapes get a chance. Different flavor profiles are shared. Different stories end up on the label. The whole world of wine expands, not just in who's included, but in what's possible.

A lot of these producers are also deeply woven into their local communities, hiring locally, mentoring the next generation of winemakers and reinvesting in the places they call home. The ripple effects go further than the bottle.

Today we highlight two producers doing exactly this kind of work—in their own distinct ways—are Mvinyo and Elentone Winery. Both are making wines worth paying attention to for all the right reasons.

Nelly Some: Founder of Mvinyo Winery

If you want a portrait of what it looks like to build something from nothing, look to Nelly Some (pronounced so-may), the Kenyan-born founder and winemaker behind Mvinyo Winery in Washington State.

When Nelly moved to the U.S. from Kenya in 2007, she worked multiple jobs and became a Certified Nursing Assistant; at the time, winemaking was nowhere on her horizon.

What changed that was food. An accomplished cook specializing in African cuisine, Nelly noticed that there were no wines designed to pair with the bold, herbaceous, spiced flavors of the dishes she loved. Rather than accept that void, she did something about it and decided to fill the gap herself. 

"I wanted wine that would pair well with African food," she says simply, "so I made my own."

The result is Mvinyo Winery, established in 2024. Mvinyo means "wine" in Swahili. Nelly sources premium grapes from Red Mountain, Rattlesnake Hills, Horse Heaven Hills, and the Yakima Valley, crafting elegant and versatile wines designed to pair with the bold flavors of her homeland. The Gogo Merlot is named for the Kalenjin word for grandmother—a tribute to Leah Chemaiyo, the woman who raised her. The Calabash Cabernet draws its name from the gourd Kalenjin communities used to store milk, representing a symbol of nourishment and home. Every label is a story; every bottle is a cultural bridge.

Chris and Miggy: The Visionaries Behind Elentone

Chris and Miggy de Quadros-Sherry didn't exactly follow a straight line to Washington wine country. Chris grew up in Maidenhead, England, close enough to the country's sparkling wine region to spark a lifelong love of bubbles. Miggy, a Washington native, came from a background in dance and the arts but studied winemaking abroad in Bordeaux and the UK.Fueled by Chris's background making sparkling wine and a shared belief that Washington grapes could produce something world-class, the couple released their first vintage in 2013 under the Elentone name.The name Elentone comes from the Domesday Book name for Chris's hometown. The wines reflect that heritage, méthode champenoise, aged en tirage three or more years, built on cool-climate fruit from the Columbia Gorge and Lake Chelan. Serious, traditional, and distinctly Washington.There are only a handful of producers making sparkling wine this way in the state. Elentone is one of them, making the case that Washington belongs in the conversation alongside Champagne and England.Like so many of the winemakers we love, they're a small, independent operation. Every bottle you buy directly supports the people behind it.Join us for a tasting with Chris and Miggy for American Sparkling Wine Day on July 3rd!

Your Next Bottle Can Mean More

The wine industry is changing, organizations like the Roots Fund, Black Wine Professionals, and Wine Unify have been created to support BIPOC careers in wine. Scholarship programs are expanding. Tasting rooms in historically underserved communities are opening.

Lasting change requires economic oxygen. And that comes, in part, from consumers who make deliberate choices.

The next time you're choosing a bottle, ask yourself: Whose story am I putting on my table? Whose vision am I supporting? Whose community does this purchase help sustain?

Beyond the bottle, there's a person. A family. A community. A story worth telling and tasting.

Learn more about Mvinyo and Elentone. | Find their wines in the WeRise Bottle Shop or in the bar

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