“Oftentimes when you go into a restaurant, the waiter or waitress automatically assumes you want to sweet wine as a Black woman,” Van Alstyne shared. Not only does that rub her the wrong way, but it reminds her of how ignorant people can be. “I do believe that people tie certain types of wine to different socioeconomic statuses. I think it's a terrible system and terrible behavior.
“When the brand went live online and hit the shelves, it was like alarming! Our distributor sold most of our cases in two weeks. And online we had tons of orders coming in and emails with people wanting to purchase the wine in California. At that time, we could only ship to about 30 states at the time. The response was overwhelming!”
After traveling back and forth overseas to do business before the pandemic, it became clear to Van Alstyne that she needed to learn how to speak Italian to do business more efficiently. “The things that we're doing is a little different than your average wine company. We're striving to create an environment for women who have ladies’ nights, those who are celebrating an engagement, or someone if someone is having a business shower. And, so many other special moments. In doing so, we want to make sure that our suppliers in Italy understand where we're trying to go as a business.