Ep. 1205 Chuck Jackson | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

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Remember, if you sign up as a monthly donor on our Patreon, we will send you a free IWP t shirt. And a copy of the wine democracy book, the newest mama jumbo shrimp publication. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, and this is voices. Every Wednesday, I will be sharing conversations with international wine industry professionals discussing issues in diversity, equity, and inclusion through their personal experiences, working in the field of wine. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your pods. Hello, and welcome to voices. This is Cynthia Chaplin. And today, I am so happy to welcome Chuck Jackson junior, also known as the wine guy. In his home state of Michigan. Chuck's formal training is in law, but he's been driving force for wine for the past twenty years. And he wears a lot of hats, such as CEO of domain Detroit brands, excursion ambassador, and wine Ambassador for the house of pure events. And he also does a lot of wine consulting and spreads his wine knowledge through all his tasting events. And I was drawn to Chuck when I read a quote from him where he said, to me, wine and spirit education involve discovering what each individual likes or loves about that beverage. Wine and Spirit Education should not be limited to discussions on terroir and the right stem wire for the right wine or spirit. While providing knowledge I'm able to expose brands that have not been shown to the demographic that I represent, and I want my patrons to drink what they like. So I love this quote, and I can't wait to talk to you, Chuck. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming. Well, Cynthia, thank you for inviting it, it's a pleasure to speak on the topic that I have so much passion for. Great. Well, this is gonna be a fun conversation because I think we're very like minded. I'm I wanna find out first before we get going, how you got from a career in law into such a thriving career in wine. What inspired you to get into wine? Well, what inspired me to get into wine? Into the wine business in particular was a trip to Napa. It was either two thousand and two, two thousand and three. I went to Visa Tully and have, like, a little grotto area with a fountain. And I just sat by that fountain, and I was going through a lot of stress at that time. And I realized that my stress was left thing. And I said, well, dang, I could be around this forever. Before then, I was just a regular wine drinker. I had been drinking wine since I was seventeen, and I had really gotten serious while I was going to law school. So, it was visa to you that gave me the, impetus to get into the wine business. Because once I got back, I started a wine tour business here in Metro Detroit to take people to the wineries here in Michigan. I think that is so cool. You're a very sort of organic paths into, into wine. It makes a lot of sense kind of taking your, you know, your course from your studies, moving along from your stress and observe how you had been drinking wine and turning it into something that you could be really active in. So I I like the organic feeling of of that journey. Not everybody's goes that way, so I like it. But I have got to sort of bring up the the obvious point here Michigan is not known for great wines. So I can say that because I'm from Ohio. So, you know, you're taking people to wineries in Michigan. I know you're really involved in the wine scene there. What are some of the up and coming trends in wine in that part of the Midwest, you know, since you started, you know, getting into line twenty years ago, what development have you seen in the past couple of decades? The last couple of decades, we've actually had a number of people choose Michigan over other wine growing areas to start their to start their vineyards and wineries. I am actually the chairperson for inclusion expansion for the Michigan wine collaborative. So we have several winery members that I count as some of the best winemakers in the world, to be perfectly honest. Because who was that Brian O'Brecht at left for Charlie used to be the premier winemaker or the the main winemaker at peninsula sellers. And at that time, when I was breaking into the business, peninsula sellers was actually winning international awards for their rieslings here in Michigan. So when people say we're not known for our wines, I'm just going to say they obviously are not paying really close attention to the competitions and generally the rieslings, our rieslings have been, have have received accolades all around the world. We are not known for our red wines, and I think that's what most people are really talking about. If they're talking about riesling, we're tops. We are doing was Pinoblock at Oxwa. I have just, finished a project, a fundraising project for the inclusion expansion committee where the where sixty percent of the blend of the wine that we're using for this fundraiser is Pino block. Wow. That's amazing. I mean, it makes sense because, you know, you're in north. It's cold. You know, I live in Vanato. You know, we do a lot of, Pino Blanc and then further north. Obviously, Trentino, on to Y2J. We get into the recently So I'm trying to think in my mind of latitude lines around the globe, but but we're very north. So it it makes sense that you're doing those lines. You know, we we were talking at the beginning that you wear a lot of hats, you know, a lot of wine hats, which Sounds kinda fun to me, actually. But I can tell you've got a lot of hard work going on. You started at Detroit City sellers, and you work for Uptown Toast hosting their wine socials. And, you know, you're on the board with mahogany Tasters. You're doing all kinds of things educating procuring wine. What's the wine community like in Detroit? You know, who are your customers? Who are your students? Well, let me break down one of the things you mentioned. Detroit City sellers was a project that was started. And that particular project did not reach completion, but it's what I call the sister project in. It's called Detroit Vineyards. Oh, okay. And that is actually a state of the art working winery in actually downtown Detroit. Wow. The scene, I mean, is most people because Detroit has really evolved and started growing. It's it's culinary and probably the last six years. I there's been a number of articles posted that we're we're building to be the next foodie city. And with that comes a necessity to know about wine. So Absolutely. We are and where I work at house Pure Van, it is primarily geared towards educating the demographic. And mostly, you know, I am a, sixty year old African American male. Most people don't see us as as a demographic for wine, but I can tell you that that demographic is there. We are buying wines, and most people look to us as having a sweeter palette. And I defy that. I will say you guys started out in sweeter wines, but that's gonna be the next I think the next thing we do for the fundraising project is next year we're gonna do a red blend. Oh, wow. Well, that's I mean, I I really I'm so on board with this idea of, you know, not singling out any particular demographic as being into wine or not into wine. So, you know, I'm I love hearing that you're sort of educating the people in your community and and really reaching out, especially I'm hoping young people too because, we've got to keep young people involved in wine. If we don't, we're gonna have no more clients. We're gonna have, a real drop in, in our wine purchasing and probably a, you know, kind of hand in hand drop in wine production. So I love that you're reaching out to, you know, a demographic that gets passed over. It I resent that. So I love people that are reaching out. I've I feel that way too. I reach out to, a young demographic personally. And I I'm not really bothered by what race or sex or whatever you are. If you're into wine, then I'm into you. So I I love that. Well, that's what's going on. That's what's going on now is the fact that I I can honestly say I've been ment during the next generation of millennials and thirty and forty somethings that are that are basically really, really into wine. And so I'm using my connections, exposing the next generation to the experiences that I've had within the industry, because I actually at House of PureVid, we now have I believe it's two, almost three wine influencers on Instagram that work for. A house of pure VIN. So they're constantly out there. They are, I believe, one is W Set two certified working on, W Set three. So, again, the wine knowledge is there. It stretches across many aged demographics now. So This makes me happy because I'm a WSED educator. So I'm glad to hear that it's it's reaching out there into Michigan and and getting getting to young people, and getting across a lot of def different demographics. I mean, WSET is a hard one because we all know it was, you know, sort of invented by old white guys in London. So, it's it's nice to know that it's still getting out there and finding finding new ground to break in Michigan, which is pretty cool. Definitely. Well, my listeners will know that your philosophy outline is sort of right up my street, you know, it, you know, just how we're talking about not restricting ourselves to any kind of group, not restricting ourselves to any kind of people, but also language, topics, stemware, things like that, and we want everybody to fall in love with wine. Like, we did. Unlike you, I fell in love with wine when I was nineteen. So I know that you're working with Michigan Wine collaborative, and your role as the Chair of diversity, as you said. Is causing a lot of new projects to come about. What what kind of new things have you got going there? Well, actually, the Michigan wine collaborative, I believe, was started to unify winemakers, vineyards, the various vendors, the cooperages, the distributors, the importers, to have what entity that that they could come together and find synergy. My goal, since I joined, because I became the chair after, George Walker, the third, got his dream job with weight sellers. Right. Right. So my focus has been more on bringing more, more of a culinary side and hospitality side into into the collaborative because we all need to work together to make everything to make everything work, where where there's wine, spirits, and food, everything comes together, especially in the hospitality industry. So I'm really trying to bring more, not just diversity as far as underrepresented peoples, but actually adding another industry in under the umbrella of the wine Michigan wine collaborative so that those employees at hotels, restaurants, at buyers can actually gain more wide knowledge It makes a lot of sense, especially if Detroit is, you know, an up and coming foodie city. They need to they need to know what wines to pay and, how to get that out there. So that's a really I think that's gonna be a never ending project, frankly. Well, well, I was just approached by the vice president of the collaborative since I'm, I'm chair over inclusion expansion. There's an open position in membership, and he says, well, you're coming up with some great ideas. You know, are you interested in being the chair membership? And it's almost like, I still have a full time job in the court system here in the city of Detroit. Everything you see I've done. I've done on the side over the last twenty twenty, twenty five years. There's only so many hours in your debt. Yeah. But whether you're perfectly honest, I'm I'm seriously considering it just because of the fact that I think that I can bring something to that mix to spur membership because I was just on LinkedIn the other day. Somebody popped in, wanted to be a contact, and he's really, really into wine. And as we were talking, he went ahead and signed up for the collaborative. Oh, fantastic. So it so it's working. And and you've got social media up your sleeve as well too. As you said, you've got influencers working there too. So that's pretty cool. You've been talking about domain Detroit brands or, you know, what turned into Detroit Pinyards and how secure that So what wines are the top sellers there, you know, in your in Detroit? What's what's selling? Well Are people drinking mostly local? Or are they drinking US wines in general? Are they looking at international wines? What's going on? At Detroit vineyards, everything there is made at the winery. So that's local wine. A house of pure van is a wine shop that basically sources from boutique wineries all around the world. It's broken down, basically, by region. So we have Michigan and Canada, but then we also bring in stuff from France, Germany, Italy. We were bringing in some stuff from Georgia. We were doing sake. We were doing sparkling wines and champagne. So when you ask about one of the biggest sellers at house of pure event, to a certain extent, we do have a focal point of boutique wineries, the smaller producers, including some, some black winemakers. We also, at Houseupyerville, try to make sure that when we're educating, we actually bring the winemakers in as much as possible. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp. For fascinating videos covering Stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond, meeting winemakers, eating local foods, and taking in the scenery. Now, back to the show. It's so helpful to have those conversations with the producers. Correct. Because we had Wyemaker from Asselina and South Africa came in. Oh, Natiki Viola. I love her. Yes. I absolutely love her. She she's amazing. Her story is is just crazy. But we also had Donny burstyn, the producer for Lefeta Jose. We've had Coral Brown in from Brown Estates, Victoria Coleman from Lobo. So it's and I'm trying to remember who else did we have, and she's actually one of my one of my contacts on LinkedIn. But we just we educate while having fun. So Well, it sounds like I mean, that that's a huge program, actually, much bigger than I had anticipated you telling me. But, no, that's not the half of it because we were trying to institute some things before COVID, and we're now now that we're kinda breaking out of COVID a little bit going to go back to that, which is to do excursions locally nationally and internationally. So that's how it ended up in Porto in twenty nineteen, right, before COVID, doing a scouting trip. That I went to Bordeaux, cognac, and Champagne. Oh, great trip. Well, what what Italian wines are you doing? Since we're on the Italian wine podcast, I have to ask. Actually, our patrons are into some of the sweeter reds, but we do have some people. We we we keep Bernellos. We keep multiple chianos. And in fact, we were focusing a lot on sicilian lines, nero nero de volas Grios. Oh, great choices. Norello Moskaleza. We do a lot. You you were it's funny because you just brought up that that concept again that, your clients who are tend to drink some of the sweeter reds. And you've said that, you know, a lot of the perception behind black communities or people of color in the states is that they only drink sweet wines, and you're trying to sort of push back against that. So what's your strategy to change that perception in the industry? How are you introducing more wine styles to your, sort of, long time customers who prefer a sweeter wine maybe because they don't know about some other alternatives. What are you doing? My goal has always been to find certain what I call transition wines. Oh, okay. Interesting. And my general transition wines will always be for white wines, white blends, when people say they'd or my best one is when people say they don't like Napa, chardonnays. I always introduce them to a nice crisp, chablis. Yeah. Perfect. If they're saying they're not into drier reds, generally, I will start either with a pinot noir or a low dye. Zefendell. Those had I literally there was one person that we literally flipped with a load item, and she was straight up Muscado drinker, Muscado Dasty drinker, and we poured her a load eyes in. And she went crazy. She was like, oh, I can drink this. I was like. There you go. Perfect. Perfect. Don't say what you don't like until you tasted it, and I always tell people it's not the grape, It's the maker. That's so true. It's so true. And some people still don't understand that. When you say you don't like chardonnay, it's not the great. It's how it's made. Exactly. And I think it sounds like you really built up a big trust with your community too. And people trust you to give them things that they're, you know, they're probably gonna like. So I think that's a really important part of breaking down these barriers and educating people. And sounds like you've spent twenty years building up a huge community who all trust you and and trust you to pour them something good. So that's amazing. But I I wanted to ask you one more thing. Again, also going back to, domain Detroit. You started the wine fest and that's been going for twenty years. So let me hear about that. No. The wide festival was actually what what I wanted to do, and it it became a hardship to get it started. And so it more or less I'm sure it was. It more or less morphed into my winery tours because I basically said if I can't bring the if I can't organize to bring the wineries to Detroit, I'm gonna take Detroiters to the winery. That's awesome. So the wine festival was more of a traveling show, more of a charter bus tour, because a lot of people were not even aware, and this was in the early two thousands. A lot of people were not aware of the number of wineries that were in the state of Michigan, not to mention within an hour of downtown Detroit. I am not aware. How many are there? Well, well, back then, there were more, like, sixty wineries, fifty to sixty wineries within the state of Michigan. That was the early two thousands. Currently, we are pushing one hundred somewhere between a hundred and sixty and two hundred wineries in the state. Wow. And the biggest cluster is around Traverse City, And the second biggest cluster is the Lake Michigan Shore area, which is was it Saugatuck, Fenville, Baroda, Buchanan, which are basically on the road to Chicago off of I ninety four, because the oldest winery in the state, which actually started in, if I'm not mistaken, it started in Windsor, moved over to Detroit, and then moved out to Papa, Michigan on the West Coast. And that is Saint Julian. Okay. So you're still doing it. You're taking these tours to to all these places that and, you know, is there a lot of interest? Has it been gaining an interest over time? You doing these tours all year round? Over time, over time, I mean, I've been in and out of it for for twenty years doing it. There are actually more people picking up and taking people to vineyards. In fact, was always hoping if you're going to Traverse City, you need at least an overnight or two day event because you gotta travel first. It's a four hour trip up there and a four hour trip back. So so you gotta give it the overnight because we had We have one provider that decided they wanna do a pay trip to Traverse City, and I've never seen anybody do it again because it's it's almost impossible to drive up there in a day and do do do more than two wineries. Yeah. Well, if it's gonna be an eight hour travel day, you're not gonna fit in more than that. I'm just I'm so fascinated that there are so many wineries and that this has grown into such a, you know, such a big thing the tourism side of it as well as the actual wine production side of it. You said you're hoping to add inter international trips too. Yeah. Just to talk more about the Traverse City trips. I'm actually working on a couple of trips for twenty twenty four, and I'm working with another group that's bringing something up, and they're actually flying in from Tampa. Wow. So if Michigan wines are drawing a crowd, this is really good to know. Next time I visit my mother in Ohio. I might have to take a sidebar trip. My my favorite wineries in the state are put put this way. My favorite winery and favorite winemakers be Bellago up in Lakely La a legal about peninsula Broward Travers City, and a buddy of my Charlie Eds that started it. He's now more or less like winemaker emeritus now, but my second favorite one is, Ycroft Marland, which is in pullman, Michigan outside of Fenville, Jim Lester. And they're all doing whites. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Some rents too. They are doing the Lago has a unique microclimate because it's right near you have the Peninsula's up there around Traverse City. They are by Lake Leelanau, which is a lake that is in the middle of the Leelanau Peninsula. So you have the influences of Lake Michigan as well as Lake Leelanau, on the great growing in that area. So they're doing really nice pinot noirs. They're doing some nice bordeaux blends, and then you go down to Fencroft Marlin, where Chip Lester has created what I call a little heaven over there. Where everything is a state grown. He does do minor projects with Limmon Creek. He also he also made a wine out of the riesling from Delago, but he does a Bordeaux blend called Show, and he does a Bordeaux White and the Bordeaux Ruge, and the Bordeaux Blanc is Sarillon Blanc and Cignon. Wow. This is amazing. I I I didn't expect to hear all these French varietals in Michigan. So this is a really kind of eye opening on so many levels. I'm really glad you were free to talk today. I I know you've been working on a magazine too. So, you know That that has been just like just like the the wine festival. The magazine has been has been a chore and it's probably it's probably gonna be something that will thoroughly materialize once I retire from the court. It doesn't sound like you're ever retiring, Chuck. I have to say. You sound like very busy and very, driven person. So I'm not gonna be holding my breath for this magazine? No. I'll be retiring from the court. I just won't I will I will be retiring from why, but I'll be retiring from the court. That's amazing. Well, I'm gonna I I don't think I can beat that quote. I'm I'm not retiring from why. I'm gonna not take up any more of your time, and I can't thank you enough for coming on and just chatting about the Weinstein in Michigan and specifically in Detroit. It's not an area that gets attention on a global front, and it's very cool to hear you know, about the outreach that you're doing into a community that seems so receptive to everything you do. So congratulations. Well, thank you very much. I just wanna end with. We will be launching the fundraising line called called the dream Oh, okay. Which which which that was the wine collaboratives, who was at Brian Lily and Brian Hosmer from Chateau Chantal brought a concept to us to create a wine as a fundraising tool for scholarships for, underrepresented people for WSet, as well as inology and then and, genocultural studies. That's fantastic. Yeah. So we came up with a concept, picked a name, got approval for the name, created the label. We wouldn't taste it at Chateau Chateau. I came up with the blip, and that's the sixty percent. What is that? That is sixty percent Pinoblock. There's some ashwad in there, there's some reverse trimming there, and there's even a hybrid grape from from Geisenheim that we threw in the mix. Wow. So the first one is an off is an off dry white And we're getting ready to launch in Michigan at Total Wine, and Meyer starting in February of twenty twenty. Sorry. That's fantastic. Feb twenty twenty three. Well, I wish you all the very best of luck that because that's such an important project. If we don't get people into the education pro you know, process, learning about more wine and learning about, you know, the opportunities that are out there, many people don't think there's a career in wine. So getting boots on the ground and, you know, butts on seats in classrooms is so important. So I'm really glad that you're gonna make the funding available for people who want to do that because let's face it. It's expensive. It's very expensive. Very. Well, we wish you all the very, very best with the dream line. And I'm gonna have to take a look at that after I get off the phone with you here. And we hope that you continue to inspire your community. So thank you so much for giving us your time today. Thank you, Sophia. My pleasure. Thank you for listening. And remember to tune in next Wednesday when I'll be chatting with another fascinating guest. Italian wine podcast is among the leading wine podcast in the world, and the only one with a daily show. Tune in every day and discover all our different shows. You can find us at Italianwine podcast dot com, SoundCloud, Spotify, Himalaya, or wherever you get your pods.