She left the hospitality industry in 2002 - but 18 years later she was called to return after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police. After working as a server at Boston’s Grill 23 & Bar in the 90s, she became its wine director and sommelier. Jeremy Harlan/CNNįranken never had wine before she went to college, but she later married a German man (“Wine has always been an ingredient on our table,” she quipped). Wine language is so Eurocentric, and it’s centered on something that doesn’t represent a lot of cultures.”Īlicia Towns Franken, executive director for Wine Unify, speaks on a panel about Spanish wine at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, Colorado. “ was a luxury we could not afford,” Franken told CNN about her childhood growing up in a low-income household in Chicago. Her path to becoming a winery owner was an unlikely one. Guests applauded loudly when Franken announced they would be the first to try it.
Inkwell is named for a Martha’s Vineyard’s beach, a place she says embodies how America should be: inclusive and welcoming.
It’s a problem that the guests at the Black on Black dinner, and many others, hope to change.Ī Black woman in a White male-dominated industryĪs diners dipped spoons into bowls of peanut soup with crispy rice and okra, Franken rose from her seat and described her company’s first-ever offering: a South African pinot noir called Inkwell, one of the wines selected by dinner organizers to pair with a dish from the six-course Caribbean-spiced menu. It’s important for those people to tell their stories.”įranken also owns Towns Wine Co., one of the approximately 100 Black-owned US wineries, according to the Association of African American Vintners - representing less than 1% of the total 11,500. “The energy in the room - I wish we could have bottled it. “Don’t make me cry,” Wine Unify Executive Director Alicia Towns Franken said when prompted to reflect on the importance of the event. Guests included former and current NBA players Channing Frye, CJ McCollum, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and Damian Jones rapper E-40 chef Marcus Samuelsson and several Black winery owners.
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The dinner, hosted Friday during the annual Food & Wine Classic, came together after last year’s inaugural event spawned a push to bring more Black voices together to celebrate successes and discuss how to diversify a wine industry dominated by White males. As hotel staff lowered the shades, signaling the beginning of the “Black on Black” dinner, guests seated in Aspen’s historic Hotel Jerome seemed to take a collective breath - preparing for a joyful and emotional four-hour celebration of the wine industry’s most influential Black leaders.
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