Ep. 1778 Alicia Towns Franken | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

Welcome to the Italian Great Geek Podcast. Join us as we explore personal stories of travel and tasting with Italy's must know grape varietals. Chart your own course with my Italian Greg beef journal, your personal tasting companion to accompany the series available now on Amazon. With thanks to Clangelone Partners for their generous support with this project. 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. Welcome to voices. This is me Cynthia Chapman, and today I have the greatest pleasure of welcoming my friend, Alicia Townsprank, the voices. Alicia has over twenty five years of experience in the wine in Street, and today she needs wine Unified as the executive director. Wine enthusiasts named her as a future forty tastemaker for her work building community, mentorship, and supporting education for underrepresented communities in the wine sector. So this is right up my street and a great success story, and I'm excited to have this chat. So thank you so much for coming back to talk to me today. Thank you for having me. Huge pleasure. I mean, we have talked about so many things in the past. We met a couple of years ago at wine wine, the business forum in Verona. And you were doing various and Sunday other jobs, and we had a great connection. So we've stayed in touch. And today, it's gonna be all about wine unified. I know this is a nonprofit organization, and you started about four years ago now. And the mission is welcoming and elevating and amplifying the voices of underrepresented minorities in the wine sector. So let's talk about this. Who started Wine Unify? And what was the driving purpose behind the whole idea? Well, the the idea of Wine Unify, stems from conversations that many of us have had over the years. Personally, for me, as a wine director in a Boston area restaurant, being the only female wine director of color, wine professional of color for so many years. I felt like I was on an island in so many ways. And we've been talking about this for so long. And I had left the industry to raise my children, and I came back, and not much had changed. Friends had started this conversation. Our three co founders are Mary Margaret Mchemick, who's an M. W. And Martin Reyes, also an M. W. And D. Land Procter, wine professional extraordinaire, who's just amazing. So why need if I came out of so much, and we actually launched it in the summer of twenty twenty. And it was sort of our response to the multiple pandemics that were happening within this country. Yes, we had COVID but we also had racial unrest. And I received a call at maybe three o'clock in the morning. I live on the East Coast. Deland is in Napa. He often forgets that we live on opposite coast. And but It didn't matter because we all were awake at that time. We all were unable to turn off and to and to relax and to sleep because it felt like the country was on fire. And he said, we have are thinking this? Are you interested in before he gets finished telling me what this was? I said yes. And that was wine unified. Just being able to look at the wine industry, to see how we could affect change into something that we had a hand in as opposed to trying to change the world, we could start in our own neighborhood. As I said, going away for about twenty years eighteen years coming back and seeing, but not much has changed. We wanted to make a difference personally for me speaking, but also for them. How can we help change the future of the industry? How can we on ramp a new demographic of people, and that was Wine Unifin. And when we thought about Wine Unifin, education is a huge cornerstone. Just it's so important to me. All the organizations that I'm I'm a part of personally, have some sort of educational component to it because I think is incredibly powerful. But it's one thing to give someone an award to pay for their credentials. We do wine spirit and education trust. It's a global credential. It's sort of like putting on a uniform. So we're not only paying for people's credentials. We're also giving them all the resources they need so they can secede. So extra wine to study glassware, in case you don't have glassware, a core event for preservation, reading resources, and it was very important for me that people were not working by themselves so they worked together in a cohort. But I think the key to Wine Unify and why we've had an almost hundred percent pass rate is that mentorship piece. We have the best mentors in the industry. They are all of color. They range from people who are admission list or restaurants to winemakers, to journalists, to on premise, and off premise, and and production. And so we're trying to hit every single aspect of the industry. And I think that's one of our one of the reasons behind our success is that we we truly are giving people all the pieces that they need. And we've been doing this almost four years now, and we tweak it as we see other things that people might need, but it's been wonderful, actually. Absolutely love it. I started at one unify as a board member and the head of mentorship. When we decided that someone needed to be steering the ship, so to speak. It was one thing when everyone was not working and could volunteer their time, but we thought this was successful, and this was something that needed to continue. And be sustainable. So someone had to take care of it. And I feel incredibly honored that it's my role to head one unify and to push it as far as we can. I think they chose the right person to do the job. Because I know how passionate you are about these things. And one of the things that I love that you're doing as you said is hitting all aspects of the industry because, you know, when people are new to the wine industry, they really don't understand what jobs are out there, what what they can do. There are so many, facets to working in wine. You know, people see the glamour of a master sommelier or a master of wine, And they don't understand that there are all these other tiers and layers of things they can do. So I think that's really important, having all those mentors from all those different roles. And I love what you said about education being the cornerstone of the progress. I'm an educator. I teach WSET. I teach Italian wine. We all know that there are a huge number of obstacles on the path to wine education, you know, not the least of which being cost. How is wine unified addressing these obstacles. You know, you're getting scholarships into people's hands. How are you jumping over all the hurdles to support and assist your members on their wine education journeys? Yeah. That's a great question. It is you know, outside of providing awards for people and giving them all the resources or many, many resources, we're creating access as well, whether it's being at wine festivals or In fact, one of our mentees just, was in Piedmont for an all expense paid trip with one of our sponsors and ourselves and and, combined. Just access, giving them access to a room, getting them access to regions, and to wines. But, you know, what I love is that we've created this network for them. If I don't have the answer, one of our mentors absolutely will have that answer. And to have a built in network of some of the best people in the industry. I mean, god, I wish I had that best. It's been absolutely amazing to watch and how engaged our mid seas are, and how engaged gauged our mentors are as well. I think they're getting as much from these relationships as our our mentees are. And, as we are looking to change what leadership looks like, people need to understand what all the roles in the industry are. You know, it's not the glamour to your point of being an an MW or an MS or certified Psalm or working the floor or wine director. I mean, there are people who make labels. You know, we have someone who's not interested in, you know, being on premise or off premise, but wants to do wine photography. There's so many different ways. There are people who, you know, you know, we need corps and bottles and and all the other things as well. There's the glamorous parts, but not everyone wants to do that. And it's important that for people to understand there's so many different ways of being an industry. And we are also trying to create one enthusiasts you know, our level ones don't have to want to be in the industry, or they may be dipping their toes in. But we want to, you know, as we're on ramping, not only professionals, we're hoping to help on ramp, more one enthusiasts. I think that's really important. It's nice to, you know, keep that, you know, very inclusive, very welcoming door open. Not everybody who's interested in wine wants to work in wine. And, you know, speaking as someone who does work in wine, I can understand that feeling. But, it's it's, yeah, it's interesting to to talk about, you know, as you say on ramping, I like that verb people at all different levels. You know, unfortunately, we have to admit that diversity and inclusion in our wine history is still seriously hampered by general feelings of exclusion. Among many ethnic and diverse racial communities at every level of the wine industry. So how are you and wine unified looking to change this and sort of break these walls down? Because We really need positive actors to do this right now. I try to be one. I'm outside of of the community, but I try to be an ally. How are you doing it from inside the community? Aside from your mentoring, process, which is amazing. What else are you doing, you know, just to overcome this general feeling of of being excluded sometimes? Quite a bit, actually. Beyond the w set, we also offer seminars. We've done fantastic zooms with just some of the best people, you know, whether it's talking about the the science of aroma, but also building a brand and marketing. And we're about to do one on language, with our our friend and mentor, Elise Echeur, from the wine who's the wine linguist. We are doing a seminar this weekend on on on finding your path, like, what part of the industry are you interested in? Building a brand with, your own personal brand or an actual wine label. I mean, it's just like we're trying to hit everything. And, like, you know, we have a hundred and we've given out a hundred and fifty two awards, since twenty twenty. And the engagements, and I often say that people come for the education and stay for the community. The education that we have, the engagement, excuse me, that we have with our our mentees, they can they continue. They come back. You know, there are times we have forty or fifty people on a Zoom, which is amazing, you know, absolutely amazing to me. And or it can be as simple as Aspen Food and Wine had one of our mentees, trailing myself in Gary Ablegasian last year. Haroldburg, Food and Wine invited a tour of our mentees, and and There's two days of education and two days of of volunteer work, which is unbelievable. So it's just giving people access beyond education in a textbook. It's just so incredibly important to help people know that they belong. And then also to to get more representation within rooms that you know, I was at an event last year, and there were hundreds of people there. And after being out of the wine industry, for about eighteen years, and just working very, very part time, I was shocked to see that very little had changed. And to be in a room of hundreds of of wine professionals, and there were maybe ten wine professionals of color. It was it was I thought, ah, okay. Not much has changed. What can What? What? Yeah. It's depressing. It's depressing. But we love this industry so much, and there are people who didn't realize that this industry was even existed or was a possibility for them. And the jobs that some of our mentees are getting right now, it's just wonderful to see. And when we, you know, after we have a new cohort come on, we do a a huge welcome call with our mentors and our board, and and it's just this beautiful thing to see the future of the industry on your screen, you know, whether it's someone who's quite young in their early twenties. And we've also had we have people in their sixties, and in even a seventy five year old who owns a, an and a B and B and wanted to offer, you know, wine tastings to her guests. You know? And and so we are hitting so many different demographics, which is so important. There's room for everyone. It's nice. I I'd say similar things about the wine industry. You know, it's like I've said to my young students, you know, learning about wine is like learning how to play golf. You know, You you might play a lot of soccer right now. You know, you're twenty years old, but when you're seventy, you're not gonna be playing soccer. But if you learn how to play golf, you'll probably still be playing some golf. And wine is quite like that. You know, If you do a lot of tequila shots when you're twenty, you're probably not doing that when you're seventy, but you might still be drinking wine. So, I I think that's it's really good having, you know, why does bring people together? And and it should do it more, and we should do it better, you know, as leaders in our community, we should do it better. And and you definitely are. I wanna focus on on your success. You said a hundred and fifty two financial awards for education since twenty twenty. That is a lot. So that that is wonderful. I wanna congratulate you on that. And I wanna ask, so where do your members go to study when they get these awards? Where is this money coming from? You know, who is who is supporting you, who is donating. And do you have any sort of hard data way to measure the success of your members after they've studied? Do you follow their careers and and what happens next? Let's talk about all these good things because this is You know, I like numbers. They are factual. Nobody can deny them. So a hundred and fifty two financial awards for education in under four years is great. So tell me tell me about them. Where do they study and who gives you money and what do they do next? Alright. Who gives us money. Tons of people, but we're always looking for more. Just like me. Right? Right. We have organizations like, Napa Valley Wine Academy, the Napa Valley Vintoners. We have wineries and other organizations who are giving us money. We have private donors, who give us money as well. There's so many ways for people to be involved with wine UNIFY. Where do our members study? Level ones all study at, Napa Valley Wine Academy, who are so incredibly generous in. I'm a big fan of Napa Valley Wine Academy. We had two of their educators in our Vineita International Academy Italian wine Ambassador Program in twenty twenty three, and they are fantastic people. Absolutely amazing. And they donate, a number of awards for us. And because of when we started, Wine Unified, it was key that we could do it online. So all of level ones go through Napa Valley Wine Academy. And then our other levels, many of them do, But because people, we are in probably thirty five states around the country. Some people want to be in person. So from level two and above, we do not require that people go to Napa Valley one of me. So some people are in DC or New York or Chicago or wherever they are. So people study in their own states and cities as well. And How do we measure success? Well, what I love is that, you know, we've given out a hundred and fifty two awards, but some of those are repeat awards. We have people who've done levels, one through three. We have people who've gone three through to and through their diploma. You know, so we are, people come back and people stay engaged. And, you know, not only is it for the awards, but they're interested in our our seminars and the other sort of programs that we're putting together for them. It it's it's a sort of a continuing education, but also, a great sense of community. And ways of measuring it I think it's looking to see where people land, hearing it back. We do surveys every year, trying to understand where we need to tweak things, what else people might need. One thing we're looking to implement this year is some executive coaching. It's something that we discovered last year that is would be incredibly helpful. You know, there are some people, you know, who can take them the baton and just run with it, and There's some people who need something more a bit more scaffolding, or just a sounding board. So we're really looking to see how to help people to see this best as we can. And that is one of the things that having an executive director has afforded us that's there's someone who can I speak to our mentees all the time? The number of conversations I'm having on a daily basis, and people who have concerns for people who have successes that they want to share, it's been really wonderful that someone can be there, to listen and to see what do we need to do next, what sort of access do we need to provide? Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp for fascinating videos covering Stev Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond. Meeting winemakers, eating local foods, and taking in the scenery. Now, back to the show. Well, that hands on element is is, I think, one of the best parts of being, you know, a real support, a real educator, you know, really an advocate for changing someone's life. If you really are hands on and having those conversations on an ongoing basis, they are so meaningful. I I wanna go back a little bit to what you were saying about your mentoring work. You said you always wanted to create an organization that you wish you had when you were starting out. I know I feel that way too. Sometimes And this this look at the mentoring piece is really important. I think making that connection, you know, for a newbie in the industry with somebody who looks like them, shares their values, shares their experiences, and can say, hey, look, I'm a success. You can be this too. So you're drawing your your mentors from all over the industry. Who have you got on board at the moment? How does the mentor relationship work? Do they get together? Do they spend a year together? Or is it kind of ad hoc? How does it get? So once we have a new cohort, I sort of give our mentees another survey. I asked very specific questions, and then I am pairing them with mentors. You know? And, sometimes it's a direct relation to what they want to do or what they are doing. And sometimes it's more needing a cheerleader. You know? Some people do have imposter syndrome, and I have a couple of mentors who are amazing at sort of dispelling that, which is fantastic. I I think that We currently have about twenty five, twenty seven mentors, and our programming, depending level ones and twos can be like an eight week commitment. And, we have very clear guidelines of what mentoring is and it's not teaching content. People can stay on, you know, there are people who are no longer doing a certification, but still reach out to their mentors or any mentor within the industry if there's a question they have. So there's no set time period. You know, we are asking that you commit to this period of when they're taking their certification class. But people continue beyond that. Absolutely. That's fantastic. I I think all of us, can look back across our lives and and point to one or two mentors who really changed our path. And putting that framework and that scaffolding, as you called it, in front of someone who's just at the beginning, is really giving them the tools to, you know, succeed to not give up to keep going, you know, up what can be a rocky hillside on on many days. So I I love the mentoring part of this. I wanna just have a quick change of topic. I I read a great quote from you recently. You'll laugh. You said there's room for everyone and everything in this industry. We wanna make room for our youth But we don't want you to throw us out with the bathwater. I love this quote. We are both women of a certain age, and we both have daughters as well. So I just wanna ask you our perception. How do you view the wine industry's perspective on youth? And enthusiasm versus age and experience, you know, particularly for women. We all see a lot of older men in wine, but not as many mature women in wine. Oh, that's a that's a land mind of a question. It's Oh, I love to throw these things out there. You know what I'm like? I love it, actually. You know, there are not a lot of mature women because frequently women have to decide between families and the industry. It's a difficult industry to be in. There's a lot of late nights, late nights. There's it's it's tough. I mean, I was wine director of a restaurant, and I know what that's like. Having to work until midnight, one AM, and then coming home. I mean, I personally wanted to be home for my children, and and once I left the floor when I was about eight months pregnant, and I knew that I I couldn't go back to that life. I wanted to have a particular type of of of family life. And I think that's why we don't see a lot of mature women. And so coming back into the industry in the twenty, two thousand and twenty, when meeting people were leaving, I thought I knew that I would not go back to working a floor, buying wine, doing that type of thing. Education was so incredibly important to me. This was perfect. Specifically for me at this stage in my life. Absolutely wonderful. Unfortunately, I think so many industries value youth over maturity. And there's so much knowledge that we are throwing away by just always keeping young. And, you know, as people become more expensive as they get older as well, it's it's easier to to bring in someone who's so much younger. And they also have that amazing skin and the energy, you know, and they're cheaper, and they're cheaper. Right? It's really tough. It's like, what's the balance? And how can you do this? How can you allow women to have a role in the industry and have a life outside of the industry as well. It's it's just I I think it's you see this across so many different industries, and it's just it really is very tough. You know, we've we've had so many revolutions around body images and, and representation of different types, but ageism is something that we haven't quite tackled yet. And how do we do that? Because we are missing out on so much. And, you know, they're I sometimes people are like, it's It's their time though, and you're taking up space. I'm like, there's room. We can all do this and compliment each other and have it be incredibly powerful because people are living longer, and people have a lot to offer. And people need to keep working. And people need to keep working. I have two kids in college. I need to keep working. You know, I have six children. So I I I have no comment on your two kids in college. No. No. It's it's not complicated obviously, but it is I think it is such a big point that, you know, ageism doesn't really seem to enter into the male, sector of the workforce, but it certainly does in the female sector. And in wine, you know, wine going back to this whole idea of people have this glamorous notion of wine, and we now have, you know, Instagram and Twitter and TikTok and all these things and influencers. And suddenly, you can get into the wine world on social media with basically zero education or background or experience or anything, if you are young and beautiful and can hold a wine glass and read a wine label. So it is, yeah, it is something I think you're right about this idea of throwing out knowledge, in favor of exceptionally good skin. No. I just wonder how we change what leadership looks like. I wonder how we include everyone. I agree with you one hundred percent that there is space for everyone I mentor a group of young women who are all social media managers. They're all under thirty. And, you know, talking to them has really inspired me. I've learned a lot from them. I hope they've learned a lot from me. And I wonder how we go forward and and change what leadership looks like and and make space for all ages of women in our industry. Yeah. You know, I think the onus is definitely on us as an older generation. I mean, I'm a woman in my fifties. And, you know, fortunately, I'm a black woman and just, you know, you know what they say about black woman in their skin. I I I I can pass for thirty five on a good day. I definitely cannot. But the, you know, the onus is on us to stay current as mature women in this industry and not to just rely on our past knowledge. It's important for us to take that past knowledge and also apply it to how what the wine industry looks like now. So it it's on both sides. Right? Continuing education is so incredibly important. I think it's important for us to bring on the younger generation, and and to to help, you know, to open doors and to to you know, they need to walk through it and do the work. But it does not have to be a competition. And I think if we can successfully change what leadership looks like, We can change this as well. It's important that we have more women at the top. It's important that we have more women of color at the top and males of color as well. You know, and with wine Unified, we're blending so many different groups. You know, it's not just It's a wine group. You have to do blending. You have to do blending. Exactly. Oh, I love that. I'm gonna seal that. Anyway I'll give it to you for free. You know, so whether we're doing DI training with our mentors, because, you know, we need to speak a common language, whether it's one of our Asian mentors or our South Asian mentors or our black mentors or Latino mentors. We are, you know, blending different demographics. And, and age is a part of it as well. It really is important that's we are seeing not just mentees who are twenty and thirty, but who are forty, fifty, sixty as well. I I love working with everyone and having people find find their way. You know, there's so many people who are looking to change since twenty twenty in their roles. We have a number of medical professionals and even lawyers and social workers who got burnt out. And wine has become a source of joy for them and whether they're keeping their day job and moving forward, it's has been a renewal for for an older generation as well as for a young generation. But I think that it's the onus is on us. To to change what leadership looks like in this country. And we can talk about gatekeeping and all of that things. I'm here to take them down. I'm not here to open them at all. Yeah. Well, okay. I love that. I'd rather take them all down than try and pry them open. I I completely agree with that. Before before I let you go, I'm gonna ask you one last thing. What advice would you personally give, you know, young people young people of color, particularly young women of color, and young men of color who come to wine unify looking for support, looking for community, looking for a way in. What's your advice? What advice would I give? It's come prepared to do the work. You know, there's a way of being a mentor and a way of being a mentee. Be prepared to do the work. Ask questions. It's important not to think I don't know at all, and I've been in this industry for over twenty five years. And there's one thing of the glamour and the glitz of being an influencer and being on TikTok or being on Instagram, but truly being open to learning what this industry is what it could be. And who who who are you, who are you learning from? You know, I think it's, you know, I've I've had conversations with people who are like, I wanna be a winemaker. Okay. There's steps that we need to take to get there. But it's possible, you know, but it's not going to happen tomorrow. And just being prepared to having your mind blown by what the possibilities are. And I think it's so important to look around you and to see who's doing what you envision you might be doing and then and talking to them or talking to someone like them. You know, people love to talk about themselves. I say it all the time. One is naturally inclusive. I think that there's a way for people to find their joy, their space in this industry without having to compromise themselves, their ideals, come to wine UNIFY. We we welcome people. And, you know, our application process, we open applications four times a year for each level from level one through the diploma. It is an anonymous process. We have one of our co founders who strips our applications of personal information, and then our board of directors go in. And and, you know, we try to limit ourselves to the number of awards given, but it's hard. I mean, last year, We had almost sixty people apply for our welcome awards, and we wanted to give ten. Well, that felt not okay to us that we were going to turn away that many people. So we ended up giving out thirty, which is doable at that level because that's group mentorship whereas levels two and above gets one on one mentorship. So it was not a huge tax on our our mentors or our resources in certain ways. But it's it's it's getting increasingly difficult to adhere to our hard fast rules of only five level threes. We actually gave out twelve. You know? And so it's it's hard. So we are here or welcoming people, and and we want to meet everyone. We want to meet you. You know, look us up on Instagram. That's that's how people find out when our awards are are being released. And write your best essay or write your best application. And, you know, there's sometimes that people are not given an award, but then they come back and apply again. And second time's a charm. You know, we wish we can give them to everyone. But we only have so many resources. So it is important that we continue to fundraise, that we continue our donors continue to give and that we find new donors because I don't think that one unified is going to go away. The reason why it started may be a different reason from why it continues, but, we're here, and we're here to help change what the industry looks like. And I think also to help the industry. And when we look at the fact that, and I'm not a boomer, but I'm married to one, that, boomers are only twenty eight percent of color, but Gen Z is is fifty percent of color. So we are in some ways the future of this industry. That is amazing. I I think, again, I love numbers, and it's you know, hearing those numbers, it's a stark reality that we need to embrace and lift up. And I love the generosity of spirit that you approach everything you do with. I like that you were supposed to give out five awards and you gave out twelve. Of course, you did. That's that's exactly who Alicia Townken is. So I think, why Unifai, as I said at the beginning, has picked the right person to be their executive director. I'm very excited to see where you go now, you know, the training wheels are off. COVID is over. You're up and running with so much, enthusiasm and and so much going on. I hope everybody will get in touch. And I can't wait to talk to you again in another year or two. I'm sure that you'll be doing more amazing things thank you so much for coming on today. Thank you so much for having me. I always love talking about wine unified. 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 italian wine podcast dot com, SoundCloud, spotify, Himalaya, or wherever you get your pods.