Slowly, minority wine producers stake their claim in California

Some vintners held on to their dreams for years beforerealizing them.
NAPA, Calif. (AP) -- Rolando Herrera washed dishes, broke rocks and sometimes slept in his car in his struggle to become a winemaker. Naming his wine was easy: Mi Sueno, my dream.
Herrera, whose chardonnay was poured at President Bush's first state dinner with Mexican President Vicente Fox, is unusual. The harsh reality is that at many vineyards, minorities are still more likely to be running tractors than wineries. But, slowly, change is coming as Hispanics, blacks and Asians stake their claim to wine country.
"We're seeing more doors open," said Sandra Gonzalez, president of Vino con Vida, a wine public relations firm specializing in the Hispanic market.
Trade group formed
Earlier this year a handful of black wine producers formed a trade group, with the goal of raising their profile in the predominantly white industry.
"They're curious that there is an African-American vintners' association; they never believed that there was an African-American market," said Ernest Bates, co-owner of Bates Creek Winery and a member of the newly formed Association of African-American Vintners. "Once we tell them that there is a market, there is tremendous interest."
Herrera got interested in the wine business as a teenager. A dishwashing job at a high-end restaurant introduced him to the relationship between wine and food. The summer before his senior year in high school, he got work making a rock wall for vintner Warren Winiarski's house.
It turned out to be a lucky break. At summer's end, he was offered a $6-an-hour job at Winiarski's Stag's Leap winery as a "cellar rat."
"That's where our dream began," Herrera recalled. "Who would have thought that someday we'd be able to afford a tank or a barrel or even grapes?"
Indeed, getting into the wine business is expensive -- a key deterrent to minority entrepreneurs with less access to capital. And, as newcomers, minorities are also less likely to have family or other networking connections.
A good position?
Still, some believe minority winemakers may be in the best position to reach a so far mostly untapped potential market of wine drinkers. Surveys show few minorities are drinking wine and the industry has done little to reach out to ethnic consumers.
"The wine guys really have not done that much marketing to the Asian-American population," said Greg Chew, co-founder of DAE Advertising in San Francisco.
Chew is developing a national association of Asian-American wine consumers. "The whole idea is to welcome the diverse nature of wineries and viticulture and really to validate the purchasing power of the Asian-American and the Asian segments," he said.
With surveys showing only a fraction of the U.S. population as a whole drinks wine -- annual per capita consumption is about 2 gallons compared to about 15 gallons for France and Italy -- there is a push to reach out to new audiences.
"We've kind of run out of the wine drinkers," said black winemaker Mac McDonald, owner of Vision Cellars in Sonoma County. "If we are to increase sales and market shares, then we need to market to the whole big world."
That doesn't mean that minority winemakers want to make "black," "Hispanic" or "Asian" wine. While they would like to sell to their own communities, they don't want to limit sales to any one group. The idea is to use what they know to help get a message across.
"Not to say, you got to buy my wine because I'm an African-American," said McDonald, "but to buy my wine because it's a high quality."
Facing challenges
Creating high-quality wines and running a successful business isn't easy, though.
McDonald only began working full-time as a winemaker a few years ago. For years, he had made wine in his garage and paid the bills with a day job at Pacific Gas and Electric.
Herrera's story is similar. Money was so tight when he started out that sometimes he and his brothers, who help with Mi Sueno, would sleep in the car to save money.
Although Mi Sueno hopes to sell 1,800 cases this year, the business is still challenging. In addition to his Mi Sueno responsibilities, Herrera works as a winemaker at another vineyard, as well as a private consultant and as director of winemaking for Paul Hobbs Consulting.
Herrera doesn't have a lot of land or equipment; he buys his grapes and has them crushed at other wineries. But he does have a small warehouse stacked floor to ceiling with barrels of hand-crafted wines.