Diversifying Wine Country: Sonoma business owner works to bridge LGBTQ+ community, Black-owned businesses

“We need to do something up here in Wine Country,” Gary Saperstein said. “There’s just nothing that shows diversity here.”|

Sonoma business owner Gary Saperstein is helping bridge the LGBTQ+ community and Black-owned local businesses as a way to improve diversity in Wine Country.

Saperstein opened Out in the Vineyard, an LGBTQ-focused experiential event and travel company, 10 years ago as a response to a lack of gay-friendly services in Wine Country.

“Out in the Vineyard started because I just recognized more and more LGBTQ tourism in the region, I recognized that more and more of the LGBTQ were moving up to Wine Country, but nobody was talking to us at all,” Saperstein said. “I wondered why — and what an amazing market to target.”

But in 2020, when the Black Lives Matter movement gained traction nationwide, Saperstein felt called to speak to another minority community that he felt had largely been ignored.

“We need to do something up here in Wine Country,” Saperstein said. “There’s just nothing that shows diversity here.”

Saperstein said it’s all about understanding what it’s like to be part of a minority group.

“Everyday I know that there are people out there that feel that I should not have the same rights that they do,” he said. “Bringing a diverse group of people together, we get to better understand each other through these common elements that bind us.”

Saperstein met with several influential Black individuals from the wine industry and recorded a one-hour conversation with them, which he included in his lineup of Virtual Gay Wine Week recordings.

During the conversation, titled “Colors of Wine Country,” Saperstein joined Brenae Royal, winery relations and vineyard ops manager for Monte Rosso Vineyard; Lloyd Davis, vintner at Corner 103; Fern Stoud, owner of Black Vines, a networking organization that showcases and celebrates Black winemakers and culture; and David Nicolls of Coravin, a Massachusetts-based company focusing on wine technology, to speak to their experiences as a minority in the wine industry.

Saperstein was able to relate to the other industry leaders because of what he has faced as a gay man and sharing the need to create safe spaces for different minority groups to enjoy wine together.

“Just hearing you talk right now, I was relating it to going to, like, a gay event,” Saperstein told Stroud during the conversation. “Bringing the community together is so important to me, and that’s what you’re doing with Black Vines.”

Following the conversation, Stroud and Saperstein began planning what would become Celebrating Diversity in Wine Country, an event presented by Out in the Vineyard and Black Vines that showcases the contributions of the Black and LGBTQ+ communities to the wine industry.

“I tell you, it was the most diverse crowd I’ve ever been in my 23 years of working in the industry here in Sonoma County,” Saperstein said. “It was white, it was Black, it was straight, it was gay, it was Asian, Latino.”

Davis, who poured at the event, agreed and said the event aligned with his own business’ mission. When he opened Corner 103 in the heart of the Sonoma Plaza in 2015, he did so with the intention of creating an environment where people could enjoy wine in a one-on-one environment without feeling intimidated.

According to Davis, Black people can be more intimidated by wine because of the perception it’s exclusive to those who are knowledgeable about it. But he compared wine to water — people have preferences and they don’t feel the need to explain why they like sparkling over still, and wine should be the same way, he said.

Celebrating Diversity in Wine Country, which took place April 9 at Fog Crest Vineyard in Sebastapol, a Black-owned winery that has a gay vintner, welcomed over 200 people from all different types of communities. The event benefited Face to Face, a Sonoma County organization dedicated to ending HIV and AIDS in Sonoma County, where Saperstein serves as development director, and the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center.

Saperstein and Stroud are currently in the early stages of planning for next year’s event.

“If we can expand on what we did (this) year, then we just keep expanding the audience so it reaches further, and that’s really what the goal is,” Saperstein said. “The more that we can do that, the more that we are going to open up the industry to more minority groups.”

Saperstein seeks to enhance diversity and inclusivity at every event he puts on, he said.

“Ever since I did that filming of the ‘Colors of Wine Country,’ that’s really changed my focus,” he said. “It’s very white up in Wine Country.”

“Part of the challenge in the wine space is it’s an expensive industry to enter,” Davis said. “It’s a challenging task because the wine industry operates so differently than any other industry.”

While Saperstein has been putting more energy into boosting diversity within his own brand, he said that the effort also needs to come from wineries and event spaces that are owned by straight white people, so the responsibility doesn’t just fall on minority communities.

“If more business would do events that maybe were focused or marketed to different minority groups, to Black groups, that would be amazing,” Saperstein said. “If we can get other business to do that then that will bring and show more diversity in the region.”

Out in the Vineyard’s popular Gay Wine Weekend, which was held in July, has attracted a more diverse crowd in recent years, Saperstein said. Davis said he’s also seen a greater variety of people coming into his tasting room in the last couple years.

“I’m getting more people of color coming in, more gay people coming in, I’m seeing a much more diverse group of customers,” he said. “The more people can feel comfortable enjoying wine, then I think more opportunities will open up for people.”

Contact the reporter Rebecca Wolff at rebecca.wolff@sonomanews.com.

“The colors of Wine Country”

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