Ep. 2545 Building Inclusive Wine Spaces Through Storytelling with Amari Collins | Voices with Cynthia Chaplin

I think my my family and friends again were, a very instrumental part in me just being, like, being brave enough to put my myself out there on the Internet because they were very vocal in saying that what's missing from your business is you. Like, as soon as people meet you, that's when they fall in love. So, you know, why deprive them of that? 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 Amari Collins to Voices. Amari is a wine caterer, an educator, a digital creator. She's based in Brooklyn in New York, and she's known as Vendealer on social media. And she has turned her gift for storytelling into a business called Swirl School. She hosts wine tastings, and she went viral with her TikToks. And now she has over 34,000 followers, so it is a pleasure to talk to you today. Oh, it's such a pleasure to be here, Cynthia. Thanks for having me, and I love your name. I know, like, two of you now. Three of you. Cynthia's are rare. I tell you. It's rare. It's like a it's a it's an old school name, but it's strong. I've never met a I've never met a a tame Cynthia. That's for sure. Well, I I I love that because that's definitely how I feel about it. You gotta be tough when you're three. You can't spell that. Exactly. In Italy, I'm Cynthia because people can't say c y n t h doesn't come out correctly. So I'm Cinzia here. I mean, that's very also very elegant and wonderful. I like it. I like it. Yeah. Well, listen. I know that your love for wine started way back in your childhood. Such a great story, with your dad who was a sommelier, and he introduced you to wine when you were a little girl. So tell us tell us about that because this is really a lovely story, not not what usually happens to most of us. I agree. Excuse me. I always say that I grew up in a very European way and and and, not the norm but not the norm, especially when it came to wine. But basically, my dad, was studying for his first level. And he and I have this sort of relationship where we've always, like, grown up together. So whatever he was doing, I was doing. Like, if he ordered two hot dogs at the movie theaters, I'd get two hot dogs at the movie theaters. Like, even if I couldn't finish it, I'd he was, my muse and he and as I was to him. So when he started getting into wine, it was only natural that I sort of followed suit, even when I legally wasn't supposed to. But it really helped challenge my way of approaching wines, because he mostly was just into, like, sensory experiences. So, we loved movies, so it's very visual. We loved to cook, and wine just followed suit. And growing up in California, you know, we had access to just, like, freshness all around, and we'd go outside in the backyard and pick rosemary that grew like a weed and cooked it with some potatoes and had, like, a California cab next to it. And, he'd be like, what do you smell? Like, what do you taste? And I'd be like, kinda smells like that burp you did in my face. And he's like, exactly. Yeah. Because I had beef jerky this morning, and it kinda has that beef taste to it, like, or that beef smell. So, yeah, it gave me a very, approachable outlook to to something that I later found out was very stuffy and not that. Yeah. So true. So true. So true. Well, my my husband doesn't drink, so I brought my children up just like you. I needed someone to play with, so they they grew up in my kitchen cooking and drinking wine. I think it's the best, the best way to really get involved. As you said, it shaped your, you know, your wine experience from the time you were little in a really nice way, so I I love that. But it's bizarre because you had a completely different career, you know, before you turned to wine. You were in television production. So how did you get from, you know, television production at some pretty important places into Vandeeler? What happened? Yeah. Yeah. I think like lots of people, the pandemic happened, and it really it's also the time that I turned 30, and I think I really just had to kick my butt in the gear. I wanted, a little bit more stability. I wanted to do something that I loved. TV was was fun, for sure, and it met and it had me meet a lot of great amazing people. But, unfortunately, like, due to circumstances of just how the media industry and the entertainment industry is, you know, it started to take sort of a back seat. People were doing other things. Drinking was one of them. And because I had worked in wine shops in New York, basically, my entire ten years at the time of being here, that was the only other industry that I knew people in. And I'm a personality hire by default, so I would would only get jobs based off of people I knew. And, yeah, like, the wine industry just opened me with open arms, like, opened the doors to me with open arms. And I was in sales for a minute and, was able to get whatever wine I wouldn't sell and sell it to my friends. And, yeah, it sort of became like this business within a business. And, yeah, that's how that was born. That's so cool. Usually, this is the moment where somebody says, and then there was COVID, and the story takes a really dark turn. But for you, you know, that's a really nice move away from one career and into something that you've already loved. So, you know, this is this is a very happy conversation for me. I like it when things are happy. So, let's let's talk a little bit about Vindealer because you came up with the idea, you said, sort of ten years ago, and you were doing these little small private tastings and using social media and kind of reaching out to sort of a a more diverse audience without being stuffy, as you said, or pretentious and all those bad things that we don't like in the wine world. I am a wine educator, and even I don't like those things. So, that's why I do this podcast. So what gave you the idea for Vindealer? You know, how has it grown up and changed in the past few years? You know, I know you blew up a few months ago with a crazy video on a rooftop, in Brooklyn. So what happened? What how'd you get VIN Dealer going, and how has it changed? And what happened with this blow up on the on the rooftop? Yeah. That's so crazy. Well, I think the best place to start is the name. Vindeler is in itself, like, a pun and an ode to, culture. And, you know, if you are a fan of Vin d of Vin Diesel or have watched the Fast and Furious movies, like, you can make that correlation. And Vin Dealers sort of started by my love of, like, movies and wine and, like, sort of marrying the two. If you go all the way down scrolling on my Instagram, you'll see that it was all just memes and references of movie characters or TV show characters drinking wine. So, yeah, it was it was really just like the the moment in life where you're just like, I'm gonna try this out. It's com it's like the things that I like, and we'll see if it lands. I was in the separate club community in New York for a while. That sort of trend came from London of just, like, chefs wanting to cook for more intimate spaces and not be in, like, a pretentious restaurant, being in someone's apartment. So I would sort of provide wine for those nights and those groups, and we did something from even, like, a arts and crafts day to, like I remember the day after my wedding, we went to, like, this knitting circle, and I poured wine. That doesn't go well for your marriage. You know? You went knitting the day after your wedding. Yeah. Exactly. Are you still married? Yeah. Yeah. He said, he knew what he was getting himself into. That's for sure. So then yeah. Now I think my