when Channing Frye retired in 2019 after 15 years as a consistent power forward in the NBA, he was at loose ends. With no long-term plans, he said, he began to feel depressed.
“My wife said, ‘What do you love?’ I said, ‘I love people and I love wine.’ I could be a party planner or I could be in the wine business.”
Mr. Fry chose wine. Established a label, Selected Family Wines, based in Oregon, where he had settled with his wife, Lauren, after playing for the Portland Trail Blazers early in his career. Among his partners is Kevin Love, a former Cleveland Cavaliers teammate who is still playing, now with the Miami Heat.
But what sets Chosen Family Wine apart is its commitment—its mission, really—to bring wine to communities long neglected by the wine industry. While some companies have made efforts to bring people of color into pre-existing corporate structures, Chosen Family set out to meet people on their own terms to introduce them to wine in comfortable and intimate settings.
“We want to move with intention, to show people how accessible wine can be,” said Tiquette Bramlett, vice president of Chosen Family. “When they talk about wine, I want them to talk about what they know. We can’t use all the Eurocentric language that is standard in textbooks.”
In the racial reckoning that followed the killing of George Floyd in 2020, many in the wine industry promoted significant efforts to diversify both the industry itself and its customer base. With a few exceptions, many of these efforts proved short-lived.
“I’ll be honest, DEI is dead,” said Ikimi Dubose-Woodson, executive director of Roots Fund, a nonprofit that helps people of color gain access to the wine industry. “It was a fashion trend, almost. Many companies that made commitments withdrew them. They say they can’t afford it.”
Far more successful are black wine professionals who have framed wine within familiar and beloved elements of black culture. People and organizations like Jermaine Stone, who has integrated wine and hip-hop. Oenoverse, which is dedicated to building a more inclusive wine industry in Virginia. and Chosen Family promote community-based, grassroots approaches.
But making people feel welcome after a lifetime of feeling excluded requires methods different from the standard practice of memorizing grapes, places and producers and diving into describing aromas and flavors.
“You have to be patient, really patient,” Mr. Frye said during a visit to the Chosen Family tasting room in Wilsonville, Ore. “You can’t talk to people. You have to meet them where they are. You have to combine two different worlds.”
Mr. Fry, late despite his 7-foot height, speaks plainly, free of the pedantic wine jargon so easily associated with snobbery and pretense. He finds ways to relate wine to the cultures of his audience rather than the pastoral images that come from the European provinces.
“If you love wine, I want to communicate with you,” he said. “Chardonnay goes with salmon, but how many people eat salmon in Mississippi? Chardonnay also goes well with catfish. You make wine not scary. Have a party, good music and a DJ. Serve wine. People say, “I didn’t know wine could taste like that.”
Ms. Dubose-Woodson says the wine industry needs to have a stake in opening up its markets to people of color. He says it’s a matter of demographics, particularly as baby boomers, who financially carried the industry for so long, are moving past their prime buying years.
“These are the communities that are going to replace the old whites,” he said. “If you don’t go to those communities, you lose that dollar.”
It’s also in the best interest of people of color to acquire at least a working knowledge of wine, he said, just as some well-known business schools require their students to learn about wine so they can function in high-end social settings.
“They have to be able to network, it’s a business necessity,” he said. “As black and brown leaders in their communities, we deserve this knowledge to be able to thrive in these environments.”
The process of building new markets takes time and investment, starting with comfortable gathering opportunities, with wine available in what Ms. Bramlett calls safe spaces.
“Being able to come in and be who you are is a powerful feeling,” she said. “You can make wine just the way you want it.”
Mr. Frye says Chosen Family has offered opportunities to the black audience, such as joining “Wining while Black,” a group that organizes black-oriented networking opportunities.
“Then we have a follow-up tasting session,” he said. “We build positive associations with wine. Don’t tell people they are wrong.
“It’s an untapped market. Once they trust us, they are empowered to go out and explore. But you have to invest. It’s not an immediate return.”
It helps that, unlike many celebrity wines, Chosen Family’s wines are actually good. His selection, all from purchased grapes, focuses on the Willamette Valley and ranges from simple but delicious chardonnays and pinot noirs for about $25 to $30 to reserve sets of chardonnays and pinot noirs that are subtle and lively, but more complex and age-worthy than that. Mr. Fry calls them “everyday drinkers.”
Chosen Family also offers a series of what Mr. Frye calls collaboration wines, in which Chosen Family works with another producer to make single-vineyard wines from different parts of the Willamette Valley, like a beautiful, savory chardonnay, made with Common language in the Eola-Amity Hills. Its offerings also venture beyond Oregon, including a bold Sonoma Coast pinot noir and a fresh, complex Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon in collaboration with Salty goats.
“We want to be constantly looking for new things and putting new winemakers on the map,” Mr Fry said. “We’re reaching a demographic, why give them just one type of wine? I don’t drink like that. Why not share these regions and these winemakers?”
Mr. Fry was introduced to the wine when his wife took him to visit Drouhin estate when he first came to the Trailblazers in the 2007-08 season, and he’s been learning ever since, both from teammates and on his own.
“I do more listening than talking,” he said. “Wine has so many layers, so many different aspects. It’s like going through the closet in Narnia.”
Mr. Frye has faced his own obstacles to gain acceptance.
“People think it’s a money grab or a vanity project,” he said. “I always get asked, ‘Why are you so black-centric?’ It was not. But I’m new to this. Do you know who wants to work with us? Black and Hispanic.”
As difficult as it is, he finds fulfillment in work.
“I like that we’re breaking down barriers one sip at a time,” he said. “Whether you’re white or black, if you come here you should feel different when you leave.”