Now, the company offers products across the United States and New Zealand and raked in over $5.5 million in sales for fiscal year 2020, according to Nielsen data cited by Wine Spectator. Robin (right) andAndra McBride (left) are teaching others what they've learned about the wine industry as sister co-founders of a booming wine company. The story of the McBride sisters is nothing like anything you've ever heard of before in the wine industry. [5] The Black Girl Magic 2020 California ros was awarded "Best for TV Binges" by the editors of Cosmopolitan magazine in the Second Annual Cosmo Wine Awards. But when their father's family sought out to connect them nearly two decades later, the McBride sisters were reunited, and with open hearts and curious minds, they got to know one another. In a 2019 interview, Ashley revealed how tortured her relationship with her father is, in part because of her desire to become a . Thats why we have join the fearless pride printed on the cans. She notes that the two of them have very similar palates. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Robin and Andras journey has provided them with a lifetimes worth of insight they hope will make pursuing a career in wine a little easier for the next generation of women interested in the field. Design is a wonderful way to express a message through illustration, and were glad we had the creative opportunity to pay tribute to three extra special women. But he did connect Andra to his family beforehand and she traveled to his home state of Alabama to attend his funeral, during which family members vowed to fulfill his dying wish. Based on the show's recommendation, the family pulled the records of every Robin McBride listed at the Department of Motor Vehicles and started writing dozens of letters. **. Fluker: What do you envision for McBride Sisters wine for the next 3-5 years? Robin and Andra McBride, founders of McBride Sisters Wines, are the first African-American sister duo to found and establish a wine company. We didnt even know about service hours and would show up at a restaurant at lunchtime, not knowing that the sommelier only tastes wines at certain times.. It was then that the McBride Sisters Collection was born. Her trip after the familys second split was to her mothers native New Zealand, where she grew up in Marlborough wine country and was captured too. Through their core values: sustainability, empowerment, innovation, and community, the McBride sisters were able to curate a unique wine experience for their customers for more than 13 years. [6], The company's main labels include the McBride Sisters Collection, which features many wines from the Central Coast of California and from New Zealand, and Black Girl Magic. Love you, Mom and Mums! Growing up, it was just me and my mom and no extended family. "The phone rang, and I picked it up, and the person on the other end of the phone, said, 'Hey, Andra, it's your dad.' Andra McBride was a 16 year old living in foster care in New Zealand when she got a phone call from her biological dad in Alabama. So when I found out about Andra, I knew my life was about to change. "It was crazy and awful and amazing sort of all at the same time. "When we first started, (the wine world) was definitely a place where we felt like we didn't belong," said Robin. document.write(new Date().getFullYear()) McBride Sisters Wine Company, San Luis Obispo, CA. We Googled the top 100 restaurants in California and started knocking on doors., They were more or less clueless, she admits. Subscribe now and get up to 61% off the cover price. Because James didn't really have an abiding father figure in his life, he brought his questions to his mother. In staying open, you never know whator who you may discover. We were in our early twenties and thirties the industry had never seen wine company owners like us before. Older sister Robin McBride was raised in Monterey, Calif., by her mother, Karen. "When we started, it was a bit of an old boys' club," Robin said. / CBS News. And I definitely lost my breath," Andra recalled. But not for. This dental device was sold to fix patients' jaws. And the farming she describes is sustainable, the wines made with minimal intervention, designed to showcase the place. Robin: I think we just jumped in and we were naive about the lack of diversity and we just wanted to produce good wines. McBride Sisters: We'll have a LOT of announcements coming over the next year! Sep 16, 2021, 12:00 ET. 2023 SheMedia, LLC. Born in the states, Andrea's mother took her back to Marlborough, New Zealand where she would grow up believing she too was an only child. We started four years ago working with the vineyard owner and the grapes, a few select rows. Our manifestation is having wine to be a high quality go-to everyday wine for having people over. . While Andra knew about Robin, Robin didnt know she had a younger sister, much less one across the world in New Zealand, and the two eventually connected in 1999. Their winemaking story is unique in many ways. You learn a lot about wine just by tasting so we first started educating ourselves by visiting wineries and tasting lots and lots of wines to refine our palettes and noses. SevenFifty Daily, an online magazine covering the business and culture of alcohol, surveyed 3,100 industry professionals in 2019 and found that of the respondents, 60% were men and 84% were white. We just went around all of it and created demand," explained Robin. Seeking to buck that trend, the sisters have assembled a team that's 80 percent women, including their head winemaker and vineyard director. Through their core values: sustainability,. Long-lost sisters Robin and Andra McBride turned a mutual love of wine into a winery spanning Monterey and Marlborough. KNOW WHAT YOURE DRINKING: A single can of SHE CAN is equivalent to two and a half glasses of wine (or half of a bottle). It also has attractive price points and can match up to a lot of different cuisines. And so they collaborated on a delightful ros, just when thirst for pink was surging. The duo also partnered with Simon & Schuster for the Black Girl Magic Wine and Book Club, where two Black Girl Magic wines are paired with a book from a Black woman author. Andrea: The profiles of wine we like to taste are similar. It was only when their father passed away that his family wanted to connect the young women. Its about getting the necessary attention from consumers and wine distributors alike to showcase how important representation is in the wine industry and how important accessibility is to wine education for all., Young wine drinkers and wine lovers of color are often overlooked by major wine brands, who have historically positioned wine, whether through events, marketing and messaging, to an older, white consumer. Best Known For: Country singer Martina . Absolutely! Its a great wine drinking city and we wanted to connect with people that weve connected with on social platforms. We each had a similar background in wining making regions. I cover dynamic women of color and their careers. Through their core values: sustainability, empowerment, innovation, and community, the McBride sisters were able to curate a unique wine experience for their customers for more than 13 years. Andra and Robin grew up on separate continents, each one believing they were an only child. Andra grew up in New Zealand with her mother, Pauline, until she died of breast cancer. We acknowledge that we alone as a company cannot change the wine industry, but it is our hope that weve inspired women to embark on careers in the industry and that weve also inspired other companies and wineries to follow suit, Robin says to TZR. Both have the same biological father, but have different mothers in Los Angeles. In meeting, the bond between Robin and Andra was instant, and intensified when they realized theyd both grown up as often the only mixed-race children in small, mostly white agricultural communities known for producing wine. The key to learning about wine is tasting, so try out new wines you havent had before and keep educating your palette until you learn what you like. Contact Susan Selasky: 313-222-6872 or sselasy@freepress.com. We took the lionesses from our McBride Sisters Collection logo and placed an enlarged version on each SHE CAN. A separate Black Girl Magic line offers up bottles of sparkling, Riesling, ros, Merlot, Zinfandel, as well asspeaking of unintimidatingsparkling ros and red in cans. There's a lot of dynasties in wine. Andra never doubted their intentions or efforts, but she did think their goal was unrealistic. But, on most days you can usually find Andrea sipping the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and Robin enjoying the Central Coast Red Blend, both are amazing expressions of our hometowns. Better grapes make better wine. This piece originally aired July 2, 2015. Ninety percent of the wine produced in the U.S. is made in California, but only 10 percent of the state's wineries are led by a female winemaker. "I think we actually underestimated that." Q: How would you describe your wine-making style? [9][10] They soon discovered a shared interest in winemaking. Raise your hand if you would like some backstory behind the SHE CAN can designs! Their. Sign up today and save 15% on your first purchase. The collection also includes merlot, zinfandel, and a red blend, as well as a zesty sparkling brut thats perfect for toasting to special occasions. For the first time, we will be opening a tasting room that will be open to the public and releasing exclusive reserve wines over the coming years. The sisters were born to different mothers, both in Los Angeles. He told her he was dying of cancer and wanted to do one last. What has been the most challenging and rewarding parts of owning your own wine distribution company? Whats each of yourfavorite places to drink wine in the world? They were all just really focused on helping to try and find Robin.". Our mission is to create your perfect wine experience. Her estranged dad shared his terminal diagnosis of stomach cancer and how he wanted to use his remaining energy to help her find Robin. Our mothers led us to where we are today, and for that, we are so grateful! The process was inspired bytips from aprivate detective as seen on an episodeOprah, which Robin and Andras familyhad watched. The packaging for the McBride Sisters Collection 2018 Reserve Pinot Noir ($50), on the other hand, exudes a little more attitude, from the showy peacock on the label to the name, a fond reference to their fatherahem, Cocky Motherf*cker. The man behind the ode might have been, in their words, electric, charismatic and confident in his style, but the interpretation in the wine has a wonderful irony to it. The McBride Sisters story began in 1999, when Robin and Andra, long-lost sisters raised on opposite sides of the world, were reunited. As the two got to know one another, they discovered a shared passion for making wine, something they each developed growing up in the major wine regions of New Zealand and central California. We are often met with skepticism and automatically dealt a lack of credibility. And when I was coming down the jetway, I looked up and thought I saw my reflection and then I realized it was Andrea. We wanted it to be inclusive, comfortable, unintimidating, says Robin. But like, what are the chances we're going to find this person out in the world?". We are everywhere our consumers are, it's important for us to never be detached from that experience. It was several years later, in 1999, when Robin, 26 at the time, opened a letter from her fathers sister asking her to call. Both of use like barbecue and we make a barbecue sauce with our wine. [1][2] The company was founded in 2005 by African American winemakers Robin and Andra McBride, who first met as adults and bonded over a shared passion for winemaking. Lawsuits claim it wrecked their teeth. Q: The McBride Collection includes a sparkling Rose wine. The entrepreneurs encourage women with a passion for wine to fully immerse themselves in the industry, from following brands on social media to participating in industry-related programs and conversations. For their part, Robin and Andra have doubled down on supporting Black and women-owned small businesses through their SHECAN initiative. Robin: When Andra was a junior in college, we both began working in the wine industry, our first business was as wine importers to gain experience and expertise in the business of selling wine, and then later launching eco.love wines from New Zealand and now Truve Wines. The number of family-owned wine businesses with Black individuals (let alone women) at the helm, however, is pretty rare in fact, the Association of African American Vintners reported last year that they make up just .5% of wineries in the United States. The sisters felt discriminated against as young Black women attempting to join an industry in which they'd be a small minority. To us, black girl magic is that drive, it's the creativity, resilience, and innovation that shines brightly. [17] As of December 2020, McBride Sisters wines were sold at select Target retail stores,[4] and was also marketed nationally at Walmart and Kroger, in addition to being sold direct through the company web site.[14]. "I'm walking down the jetway, and I see what I think is my reflection at the end of the jetway in a mirror. James stated, "I asked if I was black or white. [8] In 2019, the McBride Sisters also launched an eco-friendly line of canned wine,SHE CAN. This one is fresh, lifted and beautifully aromatic, with lemon blossom, juicy green apple and hints of crushed rock on the nose. From that aunt, who lived in Georgia, she learned both about her fathers death and about the existence of her 16-year-old sister. In 2010, they started the McBride Sisters Wine Company. Newly found sisters who had been raised across the world from one another, Robin and Andras love affair with wine was planted within them from an early age while growing up in two of the worlds most iconic wine-growing regions. Join The Zoe Reports exclusive email list for the latest trends, shopping guides, celebrity style, and more. document.write(new Date().getFullYear()) McBride Sisters Wine Company, San Luis Obispo, CA. Their story is proof that a bond can form over a bottle of wine; a truth that comes to life with every McBride Sisters . House of Pure Vin is a fantastic wine tasting place and shop and we have a lot of friends in Detroit. RegisterforRobb ReportsCulinary Mastersnow. EN RU CN DE ES. The sisters shared a biological father, Kelly McBride, whom they had had little contact with while growing up. Andra said the aforementioned phone call was the first time she'd spoken to her dad in six years. Meanwhile, Ros is dedicated to Robin's mom, and her nickname is by the lioness (KOKO). The sisters shared a biological father, Kelly McBride, whom they had had little contact with while growing up. Even celebrities can disappoint their parents. By the time the two of us met, our father had passed away. How do you seamlessly merge the heritage of both New Zealand and California together with your brand? "We had these dreams and had we not met, we probably wouldn't be in the wine industry, but we kinda felt like the stars lined up," Andra said. The origin story behind the McBride Sisters Wine. We first wanted to make wine affordable and accessible, says Robin. Where Will Wine Take You? Like this article? In making wine inclusive and inviting for everyone, Andra and Robin have found a way to attract and retain a loyal consumer base that has translated from social media following to loyal, repeat customers. ** The McBride Sisters SHE CAN Professional Development Fund is now accepting scholarship applications until July 31st. There's a lot of family lineages that still run things. Robin McBride: It was 1999 and I was 25 and Andrea was 16. Their mothers had been married to and divorced from the same man, Kelly McBride, who had not remained a part of either of his daughters lives. Birth City: Sharon. And for that, they are both grateful to a father they never really knew. Raised among the vines of Monterey, California and Marlborough, New Zealand, one could say that the McBride Sisters path to winemaking was destiny at work. This wine is not about us, the McBride Sisters, but as a thank you for all of the support and inspiration that we get from so many amazing women over the years. Therefore, its much more than a single serving. And it turned out they both grew up in small agriculture towns known for winemaking and they were both passionate about wine. After all, Google really wasnt a thing when the search began in 1994. The process was a grind. That search was carried out by his siblings using a method they heard about on an Oprah Winfrey Show featuring a private detective.