Wine & Spirits - October 2020 - 34

Rising Black Voices in Wine

Retail

RI S I N G VO I C E

TRAILBL A ZER S

Assitant Manager, FreshDirect Wines & Spirits, NYC

André
Hueston
Mack

Kilolo Strobert was making a red sauce one night while working
on her marketing degree at Johnson & Wales. She needed red wine,
and when she went to the store, they suggested a syrah from the
Languedoc called "Fat Bastard." She bought two bottles-one for the
sauce, one to share with her roommates, who ended up loving it-
and "that was the official wine bug," she says.
Strobert began attending tastings around NYC while working at
Zagat. "I thought I was a unicorn," she says. "For a fifteen-year chunk
there were like ten of us [Black women in wine] at a time." She continued to delve into the industry in various roles, including stints at
Le Dû's, a retail store where she was involved in everything from the
newsletter to staff training and events, and at Skurnik, an import and
distribution house.
Strobert is now the assistant manager at FreshDirect's retail shop in
Brooklyn, the communications coordinator for Wine on Wheels and
the wine coordinator for ICC StarChefs.
Strobert also runs a virtual class, Get Comfy with Wine, designed
to "get people to understand their own palate and communicate with
wine professionals." -C.W.

"I always wanted
to be an entrepreneur," says André
Mack, who initially
made his name in
wine as the sommelier at NYC's Per
Se. He recalls seeing an interview
with Sonoma winemaker Mac McDonald, who said that
African-American
sommeliers were
like unicorns, and
thinking, "Damn,
I am that fabled
creature;" Mack
cold-called McDonald, who encouraged him as he
branched out. Mack
went on to launch
Maison Noir, an
Oregon winery, and
Get Fraîche Cru, a
graphic design company, as well as a
mini-empire in his
Brooklyn neighborhood, including a
retail store (Vyneyard) and & Sons, a
grocery and restaurant, with a bakery
in the works. -S.J.
34

Femi
Oyediran

Derrick C.
Westbrook

One day at line-up
at the Charleston
Grill in Charleston,
South Carolina, the
sommelier asked
the staff, "What is
the grape in Muscadet?" "I was a busboy but I was the
only one there that
day that knew," says
Femi Oyediran. That
early spark sent him
down the Court of
Master Sommelier path, where he
earned his Advanced
certification before
deciding that the
Court culture wasn't
addressing his interests in wine. With a
self-described "I'm
set to destroy" mentality and drive, he
co-founded a wine
shop and wine bar
dedicated to natural wine and music.
"At Graft," he says,
"we've created a
Trojan horse. You
come in and you
taste some stuff and
before you know
it you're enjoying
geeky wine." -S.E.S.

Chicago retailer
Derrick Westbrook
got his start a
decade ago, working
as a server while in
college. "Wine fed
my curiosity along
with my pockets,"
he says, adding "I
was one of the only
college kids in Birmingham with an
idea about wine."
Later, heading the
beverage program
at Chicago's Elizabeth, he saw that he
"couldn't outbuy
the big restaurants
but I could outcool
them." Now a coowner at 1340 Beer
Wine Spirits in the
West Loop, Westbrook features wines
from Central and
Eastern Europe, the
Canary Islands and
the Loire Valley. He
also runs a wine and
music pairing series
called Samples and
Samples. -S.E.S.

WINE & SPIRITS

OCTOBER 2020

PHOTO OF FEMI OYEDIRAN BY GATELY WILLIAMS

Kilolo
Strobert

Wine & Spirits - October 2020

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