Episode 2542

Ep. 2542 4th Anniversary Special | Voices with Cynthia Chaplin

Voices

November 30, 2025

3766.5176

Anniversary Special

Episode Summary

<think> I need to analyze the provided text, which is a transcript of Episode 2542 (4th Anniversary Special) of the "Voices" podcast series hosted by Cynthia Chaplin on the Italian Wine Podcast. I'll need to create a concise content analysis following the specified format with key themes, summary, key takeaways, notable quotes, and follow-up questions. First, let me understand what this episode is about: This is a special 4th anniversary episode of the "Voices" podcast series, where host Cynthia Chaplin reflects on four years of hosting the show. The "Voices" series focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the wine industry. In this episode, Chaplin shares highlights and outtakes from various interviews she's conducted over the past four years with people from underrepresented groups in the wine industry. She discusses several key interviewees: 1. Ntsiki Biyela - First black female winemaker in South Africa 2. Gary Saperstein - Founder of Gay Wine Weekend and LGBTQ+ wine events 3. Tahira Habibi - Founder of The Hue Society 4. Judy Chan - CEO of Grace Vineyards in China 5. Ekimi Dubose Woodson - CEO of Roots Fund 6. Gary Green - CEO of Mount Yenga Wines (Aboriginal-owned winery) 7. Elaine Choucairn Brown - Indigenous Alaskan wine writer 8. Queena Wong - Founder of Curious Bines (community for women in wine) Now, I'll identify the key themes from this text: 1. Diversity and representation in the wine industry - The podcast highlights various underrepresented groups in wine including women, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), LGBTQ+ individuals, and people from different cultural backgrounds. 2. Overcoming barriers and discrimination - Many guests share their personal stories of facing discrimination, bias, and challenges entering and navigating the wine industry. 3. Community building and support networks - Several initiatives are discussed that create supportive communities for underrepresented groups (Roots Fund, The Hue Society, Curious Bines). 4. Mentorship and education - The importance of mentorship, education, and creating pathways for career advancement for underrepresented groups is emphasized. 5. Cultural representation and authenticity - Guests discuss bringing their cultural heritage into the wine industry and challenging stereotypes. Now for the summary (max 200 words): This 4th anniversary special of the "Voices" podcast series reflects on four years of highlighting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the global wine industry. Host Cynthia Chaplin shares highlights from interviews with trailblazers like Ntsiki Biyela (South Africa's first black female winemaker), Gary Saperstein (LGBTQ+ wine events organizer), Tahira Habibi (founder of The Hue Society), and others from underrepresented communities. The episode showcases personal stories of overcoming barriers, creating supportive communities, and challenging industry norms. Chaplin emphasizes how "Voices" has provided a platform for unheard perspectives, revealing both the challenges of discrimination and the inspiring work being done to create a more inclusive industry. The podcast has evolved from focusing primarily on women and people of color to encompassing a broader range of underrepresented groups including LGBTQ+ professionals, sustainability advocates, and international wine makers. Through nearly 200 episodes, Chaplin has become a passionate advocate for DEI, highlighting how the wine community's generosity and creativity can drive meaningful change despite industry challenges. Key takeaways (max 6 points): - The wine industry has historically been dominated by white men, creating barriers for women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ individuals - Community-building initiatives like Roots Fund, The Hue Society, and Curious Bines are creating vital support networks for underrepresented groups - Representation matters - seeing people who look like you in positions of success inspires others to enter and stay in the industry - Mentorship and reverse mentorship are crucial for creating pathways to leadership for underrepresented groups - Cultural authenticity and storytelling are powerful tools for challenging stereotypes and expanding wine appreciation - Despite progress, significant work remains to address systemic barriers and create true equity in the wine industry Notable quotes (max 3): - "Voices has given me a safe place to invite people onto a stage where they can speak freely about their hurdles, their successes, their lessons, strategies, advice, and hopes for the future." - "We've given out $2,300,000 over a three year period. We have 226 scholars who have come through our program... We've been able to really create support. It's not only getting the money, it's getting the mentorship, it's getting someone that you can call on any day of the week." - "There is no balance, but if you want it enough, you will go forward with within this imbalance date, swinging from this side to another side constant." Follow-up questions (max 3): 1. How can established wine industry professionals who recognize the need for greater diversity become effective allies without centering themselves in the conversation? 2. What measurable metrics should the wine industry adopt to track meaningful progress in diversity, equity, and inclusion beyond just representation numbers? 3. How can wine education institutions and certification programs be restructured to be more accessible and inclusive for underrepresented groups? Now I'll format this into the requested analysis, making sure to stay within the word limits. </think> **Content Analysis** **Key Themes (max 5 points)** 1. Representation and visibility of underrepresented groups in the historically white male-dominated wine industry 2. Community building as a strategy for overcoming systemic barriers and creating support networks 3. Personal narratives of discrimination and resilience from diverse wine professionals 4. Mentorship and reverse mentorship as pathways to equity and career advancement 5. Cultural authenticity and storytelling as tools for challenging industry stereotypes **Summary (max 200 words)** This 4th anniversary special of the "Voices" podcast series reflects on four years of highlighting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the global wine industry. Host Cynthia Chaplin shares highlights from interviews with trailblazers like Ntsiki Biyela (South Africa's first black female winemaker), Gary Saperstein (LGBTQ+ wine events organizer), Tahira Habibi (founder of The Hue Society), and others from underrepresented communities. The episode showcases personal stories of overcoming barriers, creating supportive communities, and challenging industry norms. Chaplin emphasizes how "Voices" has provided a platform for unheard perspectives, revealing both the challenges of discrimination and the inspiring work being done to create a more inclusive industry. The podcast has evolved from focusing primarily on women and people of color to encompassing a broader range of underrepresented groups including LGBTQ+ professionals, sustainability advocates, and international wine makers. Through nearly 200 episodes, Chaplin has become a passionate advocate for DEI, highlighting how the wine community's generosity and creativity can drive meaningful change despite industry challenges. The anniversary episode underscores that while progress has been made, significant work remains to create genuine equity in the wine sector. **Key Takeaways (max 6 points)** - The wine industry has historically been dominated by white men, creating systemic barriers for women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ individuals - Community-building initiatives like Roots Fund ($2.3M distributed to 226 scholars) and Curious Bines (350+ women network) are creating vital support structures - Representation matters profoundly - seeing people who share your identity in positions of success inspires others to enter and stay in the industry - Mentorship combined with financial support creates sustainable pathways to leadership for underrepresented groups - Cultural authenticity (like Mount Yenga Wines' Aboriginal storytelling) challenges stereotypes and expands wine appreciation - Work-life "balance" is often a myth for trailblazers who must navigate constant imbalance while breaking barriers **Notable Quotes (max 3)** - "Voices has given me a safe place to invite people onto a stage where they can speak freely about their hurdles, their successes, their lessons, strategies, advice, and hopes for the future." - "We've given out $2,300,000 over a three year period. We have 226 scholars who have come through our program... It's not only getting the money, it's getting the mentorship, it's getting someone that you can call on any day of the week." - "There is no balance, but if you want it enough, you will go forward within this imbalance, swinging from this side to another side constant." **Follow-up Questions (max 3)** 1. How can established wine institutions measure meaningful progress in DEI beyond superficial representation metrics? 2. What structural changes are needed in wine education and certification programs to make them more accessible to underrepresented groups? 3. How can the wine industry address intersectional challenges faced by individuals who belong to multiple underrepresented groups simultaneously?

About This Episode

The speakers emphasize the importance of elevating their community and empowering their values, but also acknowledge the pressure women face to show assertiveness and confidence in the wine industry. They suggest educating women on this and finding special moments in the show, while also emphasizing the need for adjustment in the process. They highlight the need for supportive channels and a focus on finding supportive individuals.

Transcript

Today marks four years since I took on the show, and it is really a great moment for reflection. This has given me a safe place to invite people onto a stage where they can speak freely about their hurdles, their successes, their lessons, strategies, advice, and hopes for the future. I tried to divide up my choices by category, women in wine, BIPOC wine people, LGBTQ plus wine people, foreign wine makers, career wine professionals, sustainability caretakers, educators, allies, the diversity patrol, and people focused on ensuring the future of accessibility to everyone who wants to get into wine. Lucky for me, many of my guests crossed over the lines of two or more categories, so I hope you'll enjoy hearing some of these brief outtakes. 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. Welcome to voices. I'm your host, Cynthia Chaplin, and this is a very special episode of voices for me. Today marks four years since I took on the show, and it is really a great moment for reflection. Huge thanks must go to Stevie Kim, the founder of the Italian Wine Podcast, who entrusted me with voices in those very early days. Although I had listened to many podcasts, I had never hosted one, so it was quite the challenge. The mission of the show was to showcase unheard voices from within our wine industry with a focus on women and people of color. As the show grew and took shape, I'm truly pleased to say that Voices has expanded to include wine professionals from underrepresented communities in wine, the LGBTQ plus community, people who have followed various career paths in wine, educators who are working to make wine more accessible, wine people who care deeply about the 360 degree sustainability of our industry, winemakers in challenging situations around the world, conversations about allyship, diversity, communication, and so much more. Voices has given me a safe place to invite people onto a stage where they can speak freely about their hurdles, their successes, their lessons, strategies, advice, and hopes for the future. While hosting Voices over the past four years, I've become a passionate defender of diversity, equity, and inclusion in wine, and I've had the invaluable opportunity to learn what those values mean to a vast number of people. I've become a devoted champion of making space to listen, to hear new and different perspectives, to podcast myself a mile in someone else's shoes, and hopefully bring inspiration, solidarity, and humanity to our shared wine world. We've all heard the saying, may you live in interesting times, used as an ironic curse since interesting here usually means troubled. We definitely live in a world of great uncertainty and fear with war, tariffs, sanctions, geopolitics, financial difficulties, sagging economies, and changing consumer trends all negatively affecting the wine industry we love. However, hosting voices for these past four years across almost 200 episodes has shown me that wine people are some of the most generous, creative, expansive, thoughtful about. You can find all my past interviews in the back catalog of the Italian Wine Podcast website and on all the usual platforms where you typically listen to podcasts. A big shout out to all the Italian Wine Podcast producers I've worked with, past and present, from Joy Livingston and Elena Volaschina to Beatrice Mottele and Rosa Zarmouk Hametova, I thank all of you for your enthusiasm, encouragement, patience, and support. I tried to divide up my choices by category, women in wine, BIPOC wine people, LGBTQ plus wine people, foreign wine makers, career wine professionals, sustainability caretakers, educators, allies, the diversity patrol, and people focused on ensuring the future of accessibility to everyone who wants to get into wine. Lucky for me, many of my guests crossed over the lines of two or more categories, so I hope you'll enjoy hearing some of these brief outtakes from fascinating inter Mitsiki Vayela was another of my favorite conversations. She was the first black female winemaker in South Africa, and she went on to win medals and eventually be named in 2017 as one of Forbes' top 20 most innovative women in wine. I spoke to Nitsiki about a lot of topics, how difficult it was for her as a young black woman to get into a wine university in 1998 at Stellenbosch where they only spoke Afrikaans, and there were very few black students. Your path to coming into wine wasn't that obvious. I I know you had never tasted wine before you were offered a scholarship to study winemaking at Stellenbosch University. What made you decide to accept that scholarship and go into winemaking? I think it wasn't really about winemaking per se that made me take the scholarship. It was a need to change my life. It was a need to do something. And so when the scholarship came and it said winemaking, I was like, I'll take it because I wanted to change my life. I wanted to study. Those were the key things that I wanted. The fact that it came is in winemaking form, it for me, it wasn't really the reason for choosing it. But it was the the reason was to change my life. What were you doing before the scholarship came along? So I finished matric, and as I started applying for bursaries, I was but all the bursaries I was applying for, I was getting, obviously, the the very famous letters coming back saying we regret. So I got a job. I worked for a year as a domestic worker. So when I called got called in school, I was already working as a domestic worker. So I worked for a year, and then I got this opportunity to apply for this scholarship, and then I did that. When was that? Because it's you're you're younger than I am, so this is not in the distant past. I don't know. It was in 1997, then '98. Wow. Yeah. So very recently. Very recently. Yeah. So I worked in I was working in 1998, and then, I've got the scholarship to come to Stellenbosch then a year after. That's that's incredible. How was it learning about wine literally from sort of ground zero? I think it wasn't really about wine. It was learning in Africans. That was the tricky part. Part. It was learning in a different culture. It was being in a different environment, which doesn't look like the environment I grew up in, which doesn't feel like the environment I grew up in, and culturally and in all aspects of it. So it was that that basically was more challenging. But for me, it was one of those to say, no matter what comes my way, I need to get this degree. I need to pass. I need to I need to succeed in what I'm doing. You won a gold medal for your first red wine. Tell me a little bit about that. Oh, yes. That was a a Cape Cross. It was a Cape Blend, Pinotash, Cab, and, and Merlot. So one I think one thing I remember most about that was when we the awards, it was like an angel, international wine awards. So when the awards was announced, it was very interesting that in the room at the event, I remember clearly there were two black people. It was me and Tariro Masaidi, who is a winemaker. It's a guy from his from Zim, but he was making wine for, I think at that time, one of the wineries. So there are the two of us as black people, and then the rest of the black people were the waiters and waitresses. It must have been like being at university all over again. Absolutely. And I think what that even touched me because what happened is when the awards were being announced and when they called the Stelikaya Cape Cross, the waiters and waitresses screamed with excitement. And I was like I was like, oh my god. They know me. Like, it is yeah. That must have been so self affirming. That's an amazing moment. It was a moving