The Wine Pair is thrilled to be joined by The Swirl Suite, four African American women who co-host The Swirl Suite podcast and who aim to elevate black and women voices in the wine industry. In this episode, you will hear from these four amazing women - Sarita, Tanisha, Glynis, and Leslie - as they discuss with us their careers in wine, what motivates them and keeps them going, and the challenges they see and have experienced on their journey. And while we did not taste and review any wines this week, we do share some black owned wines that we think you should check out: Longevity Cabernet Sauvignon. Black Magic Girl Rose’, and Michael Lavelle Zinfandel.
Contact The Wine Pair Podcast - we’d love to hear from you!
Visit our website, leave a review, and reach out to us: https://thewinepairpodcast.com/
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Send us an email: joe@thewinepairpodcast.com
Show Notes and Transcript
Episode 28: Interview with The Swirl Suite (Black and Women Voices in the Wine Industry) 00:00
Hello! And welcome to the Wine Pair podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier for reasonably priced wine, and this is my wife and wine-pairing partner in crime - Carmela. And we are the Wine Pair.
Ok, Carmela - let’s set the record straight. For any of you that are new to our Podcast, what we usually do each week is we taste and review three reasonably priced wines - which means under $20 - that you should be able to find easily in your local store. But this week, Carmela, I am so excited because we are doing something different - we are doing an interview with The Swirl Suite. The Swirl Suite is a wonderful group of four African American women who host their own podcast which elevates black and women voices in the wine industry.
We have been following and listening to The Swirl Suite podcast for a while now, and we have learned so much about wine, and especially black and women’s voices in the wine industry, through their podcast. Plus, they are fun, hilarious, and just really down to earth people.
A few weeks ago, I reached out to them to see if they would be interested in being on our podcast, and they got back to us right away. I was so happy, and I have been so impressed with how kind and thoughtful they are, and by how much they were willing to share with us in our conversation. I think you are going to love this interview with them - we will cover how their podcast came to be, how they got into the wine business, what they are currently working on in their careers related to wine, and some insights into the realities of being black and being women in the wine industry. We want to get right to the interview . . .
But, first, I do want to just take a minute to invite you to subscribe to our podcast so you can listen to all of our other episodes! And, you can also follow us on Instagram and Twitter at the wine pair podcast, and you can reach out to us and read our show notes on our website thewinepairpodcast.com. And if you like what you are hearing, give us a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Ok, now without any further ado, let’s get to our conversation with The Swirl Suite!
The Swirl Suite Interview 04:20
Carmela, how excited are we to have the women from the Swirl Suite podcast join us on our episode this week.
Hello to you all!
Thank you so much for being with us! For our listeners, we are joined today by Sarita, Tanisha, Glynis, and Leslie, the co-hosts of the Swirl Suite podcast, and over the course of our conversation today you’ll learn more about them and how to find their podcast, follow them on social media, and all that good stuff!
So, again, thank you so much for being on our show. We are so honored and excited and nervous all at the same time. This is such a pleasure for us.
Ok. Are you ready to do this? So, we will be asking each of you some questions in this conversation - cause there are a lot of you and only two of us so we want to make sure we are able to keep our heads together, but please feel free to stop us if there is something you want to say, if there is a question you want to answer that you didn’t get to, or if there questions you want to ask us.
The first question I should ask is - are any of you drinking wine during this interview, and if you are, what are you drinking?
Glynis, I am going to be really disappointed if you are not drinking a Turley Zinfandel!
- JOE (Sarita - let’s start with you) Tell us a bit about The Swirl Suite. How did you start it, how long have you been doing it, and what are your goals? What makes The Swirl Suite special?
- CARMELA (For anyone to answer) How do you all stay connected since all of you live in different areas? Tanisha even lives in France, so does that make staying in touch a challenge?
- JOE (For Tanisha) Tanisha, how did you end up in France, and what keeps you there today?
- CARMELA (For Glynis) How did you first get interested in wine? Was there a “wine moment” for you, or was there a mentor or guide who influenced you?
- CARMELA (For Sarita) Same question to you, Sarita.
- JOE (For Leslie) What is your current focus in the wine industry? What makes what you do unique and/or important? How can people learn more, support you, etc.?
- JOE (For Glynis) Same question for you, Glynis
- CARMELA (For Tanisha) What challenges or barriers did you face (and do you face) in the wine industry? What has been the most important thing to overcome?
- CARMELA (For Sarita) Same question for you, Sarita.
- JOE (for anyone to answer) You all are involved in things like The Roots Fund which helps people of color get into and succeed in the wine industry. What should our listeners be aware of and pay attention to? What can our listeners do to support African American wine professionals and wine makers? (This could include some black wine makers that you want people to look for, or groups you want people to support, etc.)
- CARMELA (For Leslie) What is your funniest and/or favorite wine story?
- JOE (For everyone to answer) We love that at the end of your podcast you do some round-robin questions, so we have a couple for you:
- If you were stranded on a desert island and could only drink one wine for a year, what wine would you choose and why?
The last thing we want to ask is to see if any of you will be coming to Seattle any time soon? Because, if you do, you are automatically invited to Sunday Night Dinner, which is kind of a big deal. It’s a big noisy adventure that we have every Sunday night with our families - highlight of the week, or a great way to start off the week. For Glynis and Tanisha, we just want you to know that we serve real Italian food and usually drink some nice Italian wine (Glynis loves Italian food and Turley, Tanisha won an award for Italian wine reviewing). And, Sarita, we want you to know that we will very likely start the evening out with some sparkling wine and appetizers. And Leslie, you can have anything you want! You just let us know!
And, before we leave, let’s have you all tell our listeners how they can find and follow your podcast and your social media accounts.
How to find the Women from The Swirl Suite Podcast 45:52
Carmela, that was so insightful, fun, and moving, and we can’t wait to talk to them again and have them over for dinner!
Is there anything that stood out for you in our conversation?
It was just eye-opening for me. To get first hand information on how hard these women have worked to make careers for themselves in the wine industry, how much they support and rely on each other, and how real the challenges are for women, and for black women and men are in the wine industry. I know for me that is something I take for granted, and it is powerful reminder to me to consider as we do this podcast, or we just are out learning about and drinking wine. As Leslie said, it’s up to us as conscious consumers to be aware.
If you want to know more about The Swirl Suite, please head over to our website thewinepairpodcast.com to get more information on how to listen to and follow them, and you can find their podcast on Apple podcasts and wherever you get your podcasts. We encourage you to listen!
Here are their Instagram handles again:
Sarita @VineMeUp
Tanisha @GirlMeetsGlass
Leslie @Vino301
Glynis @Vino_Noire
The Swirl Suite @swirlsuite
Website: https://www.swirlsuite.com/
Black Owned Wines that we are drinking this week 48:22
For the sake of time, we are not going to taste and review the wines we have picked out which are made by black owned wineries and labels this week, but we will in the future where we will incorporate them into episodes we do on wines that we taste, and you can find out more about these wines in our show notes as well. We will give you a quick run down of the wines, and we encourage you to do your own research and actively search out wines made by people of color in America and in other countries as well as Leslie suggested.
Wine: Longevity Cabernet Sauvignon
Region: California
Producer: Longevity
Year: 2018
Price: $11.99
Retailer: Total Wine
Alcohol: 13.5%
Grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon
Professional Rating: WW 89
Wine: Black Magic Girl Rose’
Region: California, Central Coast
Producer: McBride Sisters Wine Company
Year: 2020
Price: $19.99
Retailer: Total Wine
Alcohol: 13%
Grapes: Pinot Noir
Professional Rating: WW 89, 93 points Monterey International Wine Competition 2021
Wine: Michael Lavelle Zinfandel
Region: California, Lodi
Producer: Michael Lavelle Wines
Year: 2018
Price: $23.00
Retailer: Website
Alcohol: 14.2%
Grapes: Zinfandel
Outro and how to find us 49:53
Thank you again for listening! And join us again next week for more insights, fun, and education on wine! We would love for you to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And we would love you to rate and review us so others know how much you like it And, we would love to hear from you. Tell us what you like and what you don’t like, tell us about some wines you want us to try, tell us if you want to be a guest on our show. Or, just tell us about a wine you love or you hate and we’ll chat it up. You can visit our website at thewinepairpodcast.com and leave a voice message or send us a note - and you can also find our show notes. You can comment or reach out on Instagram at thewinepairpodcast and follow us on Pinterest at thewinepairpodcast. You can reach out to us at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com and we would LOVE to hear your comments. And we hope you tell all your friends and family and enemies and loved ones and everyone about the Wine Pair Podcast!
Thanks for listening to the Wine Pair podcast, and we will see you next time. And, as we say, life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine
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