McBride Sisters Wine (Part 2 of 2): Robin McBride and Andréa McBride John

After Robin McBride and Andréa McBride John made the extraordinary discovery that they were half-sisters, they formed a deep bond and discovered a mutual dream: to create a wine company that would demystify wine culture and attract a wider audience. In the mid-2000s, they staked their life savings on an importer's license and began selling New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc to high-end restaurants, eventually partnering with larger companies to test out their blends and learn more about the business. In 2016, they decided to take a leap and create their own collection. Today, their wine—including the signature brand Black Girl Magic—is on grocery shelves across the country, and the McBride Sisters Collection is one of the biggest Black-owned wine companies in the world. Order the How I Built This book at: https://smarturl.it/HowIBuiltThisSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 5:06Guy Raz?

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• 5:52Guy Raz?

  or by visiting howibuiltthis.com or guyrazz.com. And thanks.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  We did have to go to vineyards and find grapes that were available. And then we also needed to find a facility where we could make our wines. And we also needed to get licensed to do so.

• 6:13Guy Raz?

  Yes.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  And then we also needed to get national distribution ourselves. Like, there was an immense-

• 6:19Guy Raz?

  In six months, you had to do all this in six months?

• 6:22Speaker 01

  I mean, we had to do that really in like 90 days.

• 6:25Guy Raz?

  Sounds absolutely terrifying.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Exciting.

• 6:29Guy Raz?

  Exciting, yes.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  It was very exciting. Thrilling.

• 6:40Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 6:51Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how two sisters took their life savings, taught themselves wine making, and shook up an industry with a brand designed for a whole new type of wine drinker and called it the McBride Sisters Collection. Stripe is built for whatever comes next because the pace of change has never been faster than it is right now. New business models, new currencies, and new expectations for speed, reliability, and scale. Stripe builds financial infrastructure that helps businesses start, grow, and operate globally. From payments and billing to fraud protection and cross-border payouts, Stripe is built to support the new pace of commerce.

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• 9:37Guy Raz?

  Okay, so I warned you last time. This story is epic, right? And I am assuming you're here because you've already heard part one of this two-part story. How two half-sisters who didn't know the other existed until both were grown up, went on to launch one of the biggest black-owned wine companies in the world. But if you haven't heard part one, please stop listening right now and go back one episode in your podcast queue to hear it. As for the rest of you, you've now had a few days to dry your eyes and recover from the first half of the story, which means we are at the business building part of what would eventually become the McBride Sisters collection.

• 10:22Guy Raz?

  Now, the thing about Andrea and Robin McBride is that despite both growing up in winemaking regions, Robin in Monterey, California, Andrea in New Zealand, neither sister had any real connection to the industry, and neither had any real money to put towards a business. They were also young women of color trying to break into an industry that's often been dominated by older, mainly white, men. But none of this mattered. They didn't care. They knew that they both shared a love of wine and that they both had a deep and powerful desire to work together. And there was one other thing. They were motivated by a mission.

• 11:07Guy Raz?

  They wanted to build a company that would make wine more accessible, to disrupt and demystify the sometimes intimidating parts of wine culture. Grape varietals, how to taste it, regional nuances, ratings, even how to read labels. And when they first dreamed up the idea of starting a wine company, Robin, the older sister, had been working at a corporate job and was married with three children. And Andrea was a college student at USC. I mean, neither of you had a whole lot of startup cash, if any. I mean, did you, Robin, did you, I mean, you had been working, but you also had a family. Did you have any savings?

• 11:49Speaker 01

  I mean, not much. You know, it was kind of a nearly paycheck to paycheck situation. You know, I had gotten married, we had recently purchased a home, but, you know, we have brand new twin babies and an older girl, so there wasn't a whole lot of cash available.

• 12:07Guy Raz?

  And Andrea, I'm assuming, given that you earned scholarship at USC and a college student, you probably were broke, right?

• 12:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I got my scholarship checks, you know. Where you could get a job and, you know, make money, you know, that was, that was what I did.

• 12:21Guy Raz?

  So the, the, the original idea was, it sounds like what you guys settled on was, let's just import wine and, and kind of put a label on it. Was that the initial idea?

• 12:31Speaker 05

  So we had this grand vision. We felt like what was really critically important was that we're incredibly passionate about wine.

• 12:40Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 12:41Speaker 05

  We're students of wine, but we need to learn the business of wine. And, you know, we could get this license in California, a federal importers license that was like $1,500. It was like our total life savings and we could import other people's wines. And we started by reaching out to, to families in New Zealand. And then we could, we could learn the business and we went to them and basically said, you know, don't put all your eggs in our basket, but we think California could be a great market to grow your brands and your wines. And we negotiated really long payment terms.

• 13:20Speaker 05

  So we could bring in the wine, sell it, collect the cash, pay the light bill and then pay them back. And then as a part of like the process was every harvest, we come back and you guys teach us how to make wine.

• 13:38Guy Raz?

  And you, Andre, had obviously some connections in New Zealand because you're from there and your family, you have family of farmers.

• 13:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:46Guy Raz?

  So when you first approached these wineries in New Zealand and they agreed to send you wine, how did that work? Like, how many, how many bottles of wine did you initially buy? And then where, where did you go to sell them?

• 14:00Speaker 05

  So, yeah, so it was crazy. It was, at the time, it felt like it was an insanely huge amount of wine. And it was a pallet, which is

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Like fifty-four cases.

• 14:15Speaker 05

  Which is like the the minimum of what you can like put on a boat, you know. Um, but for us, that was just an insane and and in a case of wine, there's twelve bottles.

• 14:26Guy Raz?

  So. Right.

• 14:27Speaker 05

  It just felt like a huge feat to be able to get these licenses because, you know, the the sale of alcohol in the United States is highly regulated.

• 14:38Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 14:39Speaker 05

  Um, and it's very strict. And so just the process of obtaining a license to import seemed and felt like such a huge rigorous process. And then and then to convince people, you know, to entrust in us and and give us product and then to get it on a boat.

• 14:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 14:59Speaker 05

  And then and then bring it into the port of of Long Beach at the time and then put it into a federally bonded warehouse because you can't just like bring that to your house. It has to go into a bonded warehouse.

• 15:11Guy Raz?

  Oh, my God.

• 15:12Speaker 05

  And then at the point like, wow, okay, it's here, so we gotta go sell it.

• 15:17Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:17Speaker 05

  You know, and then literally Googling, you know, top restaurants in in L A and and in San Francisco and getting some samples from the warehouse and putting them in a bag and and literally just walking into restaurants.

• 15:34Guy Raz?

  All right, so tell me how you did that, like, would you go with the two of you go or or would you go separately?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  So here's what we did. So specifically for so at the time, Andrea is still in Los Angeles. I'm in New Orleans, California.

• 15:45Guy Raz?

  Still at USC.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:47Guy Raz?

  Barely twenty-one at that point, I think, like twenty-two, maybe twenty-one.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, barely legal. So, um, so what we did, and you know, thank God, we were so optimistic and so naive. And in a sense, that's kind of what saved our butts from a huge failed launch. Was that, you know, we didn't, we didn't play by the rules because we didn't know what they were, right? And so and because we didn't play by the rules, we actually, you know, unknowingly gave ourselves some tremendous access to really great accounts. Um, because we, you know, we had a whole lot. Confidence and no business experience. So we were doing all the wrong things. But what we would do is we would, I would sit up in Northern California and, you know, Google like top 10, you know, highest rated, you know, restaurants in Los Angeles.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  And then I would just like, like the most naive, like dummy person in the world, pick up the phone. And, and I would see who was the wine buyer or the sommelier or the wine director or whatever was going on in that restaurant. You know, just really stalk them and be really creepy. And then I would find the phone number for them and then I would just cold call them. And, and I don't mean like one time. I mean, I would keep calling until I got to that person. And I don't even know what you're supposed to say in those situations, but I would just say like, hi, you know, this is Rob Mc Bride. I have this amazing wine from New Zealand. I think you're gonna love it. It's gonna, you know, be blah, blah, blah. Like, when can we come in? And, you know, knowing what I know now, that's ridiculous, but at the time, I think people were just sort of set back. Like, are you, are you serious? You're calling me on the phone, you know, talking about this?

• 17:22Speaker 01

  And I just was really, really persistent. And so we got an appointment. And there is a certain protocol where, you know, your distributor goes in and takes you in and you set appointments.

• 17:33Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  You know, this whole thing that you're supposed to do, and we just didn't know that that's what you were supposed to do. But, you know, they would see us because we were just so persistent because we didn't know we were doing the wrong thing.

• 17:43Guy Raz?

  Did Andrea, did your, like, I imagine if you have a French accent and you go and you talk about the French wines you're selling, people kind of just psychologically think of you as maybe legit. Did your New Zealand accent maybe kind of help you out?

• 17:57Speaker 05

  No.

• 17:58Guy Raz?

  No, okay.

• 18:02Speaker 05

  Because this is the thing with wine is that it, when you think about the great wine regions historically in the world, they're usually in what we call the old world, which is Europe.

• 18:14Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 18:14Speaker 05

  Usually France and very aristocratic, very formal. There's a process. There's guardrails around who does what. And so when you come from a place of where you just don't know what you don't know,

• 18:30Speaker 05

  it's startling for people, I think, because they're, I think in their mind, they think. How dare you, like the audacity, you know, don't you know how this works in this industry type of sort of approach? And when you think about the wine business on the winemaking side, on the ownership side, even within the higher ranks of distributors, it's mostly older men. So I think what was startling was, and why my accent didn't help me, was because I was so young. I was a woman and I was a woman of color.

• 19:10Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 19:11Speaker 05

  At that time, the wine industry was, was a very close knit, closed off industry with a lot of deep tradition that we, that we respect. But at the same time, not a lot of innovation, not a lot of disruption. And so we looked very foreign in, in these situations.

• 19:37Guy Raz?

  What was the first restaurant or client who, who said, okay, yeah, we'll buy a couple of bottles?

• 19:41Speaker 01

  I, I can cite one in San Francisco that was a very, it was a, it was a learning moment for us, but ultimately became, I think probably our first, you know, really notable account anyway, where I, I was doing my, my cold calling routine that I do. And this particular person and this particular restaurant I called, and he, he's a sort of famous kind of sommelier and winemaker that purchases the wine for this big restaurant group in California. And I called and he was completely incensed. I mean, he yelled, he yelled at me. He said, don't you ever, ever call me during service hours.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Now, again, us not knowing what the rules were, I said, oh, absolutely. What exactly what time might that be, you know, so that I can call you back? And he just said, you know, before, he said, I don't know, before, you know, two or three. I said, okay, absolutely. I'll call you tomorrow before two or three. And he was like, he screamed at me and he hung up the phone. And I was like, had to Google. I'm like, what is he talking about service hours? Like, what does this mean? And I was like, oh, that fully makes sense because a restaurant, you know, begins prepping to begin serving their customers, right? But we had absolutely no experience, right? But whatever, I mean, you know, we don't, you know, see many things as failure. It was like, okay, good. Now we know. So going forward, we will never call these folks during service hours. And that ended up being, it's in San Francisco, the main restaurant is in San Francisco.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  And that ended up being our first really large, for us at the time, restaurant account that had multiple locations.

• 21:21Guy Raz?

  But how did you convince him to eventually buy your wine?

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Because our wine was amazing and we don't take no for an answer. So by the time that we called during non-service hours and we, you know, after, I'm not sure how many attempts it took, but we ultimately were able to get in there and show them the wines, which we knew were amazing.

• 21:37Speaker 05

  And that was luck. That was luck.

• 21:39Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 21:39Speaker 05

  Felt like we'd made it.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  We'd made it.

• 21:43Guy Raz?

  Here's a question, right? Like now you're on a wine list with like hundreds of wines, right? And you're a New Zealand wine competing with like probably rich people who are like gonna buy Burgundies or whatever, you know, whatever it is. How do you, at that point, how can you get the sommeliers to encourage people to try your wine?

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Well, this was a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc that I think was like $24 a glass.

• 22:08Guy Raz?

  Oh, wow. Okay. So it was an expensive wine.

• 22:11Speaker 05

  Yes. Yes. And I think at the time, what we had on our side, this was like pre 2008. And New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, I think for the world wine industry, was this new kid on the block that just exploded. So I think in terms of timing, that was our star, you know, in our portfolio. And then we also had some really just beautifully gorgeous wines from New Zealand. And so it was a really great time to be introducing people to something new.

• 22:44Guy Raz?

  So really, it was the two of you like working the phones and cold calling and just hustling and probably hearing a lot of no's.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:53Guy Raz?

  And did those no's ever make you feel bad? Or I mean, or how were you able to stay unflappable and to just keep pushing forward through those no's?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  I think it comes down to, again, sort of what drives us and a little bit of DNA probably also that we might not be able to take credit for, I'm not totally sure. Or maybe it's just the challenges of the backgrounds that we grew up in, that we're a little resilient, you know? So I don't think we've ever interpreted anything that we've experienced as a failure, because it's all part of, you know, a process of finding out what works and what doesn't work. We're always still learning.

• 23:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I think also too, it was, our goal was to found a winery. And our mission has always been to transform the wine industry, to lead by example, most importantly, to cultivate community, that's something that we saw that was like really lacking.

• 23:52Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Did you, how long did it take you to sell that pallet of wine, that first shipment? Do you remember?

• 23:59Speaker 05

  I think it took us about six months. But then, within that six month period, there were so many learnings that then thereafter, the reorders happened a lot quicker and the sell-through was a lot quicker.

• 24:14Guy Raz?

  And presumably, your expenses were pretty low because you guys didn't have a physical office, right?

• 24:19Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 24:20Guy Raz?

  And you were just kind of living modestly, like both of you were.

• 24:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, but you still got to pay your mortgage and your light.

• 24:27Guy Raz?

  Got to pay your mortgage, yes.

• 24:28Speaker 05

  And your light bill and the rent.

• 24:29Guy Raz?

  Yeah. It sounds like initially, because New Zealand whites, Sauvignon Blancs are like considered to be value wines. Obviously, there are premium ones, but generally value wines. But it sounds like initially, you were focused on the premium, right? Some more high-end wines and you were servicing high-end restaurants.

• 24:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:51Guy Raz?

  Initially.

• 24:52Speaker 05

  And the wine industry, premium, I know it's a little bit like, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but premium is anything that's over $13 a bottle. So for the most part, most like New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is sort of over that threshold.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:07Speaker 05

  And then, you know, super premium, I think, when is it like over $20?

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's like ultra premium.

• 25:14Speaker 05

  Yes, but we but we definitely were in the higher end part of the business and we're attracted to that because that is sort of the geeky nature of us learning about wine, intricacies and everything that comes with it. At the same time, seeing very clearly the juxtaposition of a lot of this isn't accessible to everybody. How do you democratize the wine experience? Because it just seems like when you philosophically, like when you think about wine, it's, you know, it's, it's the bond of nature and people and community.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 05

  That's been going on for like 8,000 years. And that communal connection it creates with food and humanity and love and friendship. You know, I feel like, you know, wine is history and it's in its culture and its optimism in a glass and everybody should have access to that, not just a select few.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we felt like it was a problem, you know, for for us to solve that wasn't being addressed anywhere else, which was how can we help more people experience wine in a better way?

• 26:26Guy Raz?

  Which, I mean, at every level makes sense, including economic sense. Because you think about like, these really expensive Burgundies, right? From these chateaus in France and, you know, people will buy, you know, a case of their wine for, you know, they'll get on a list and they'll, they'll, they'll get their allocation and they'll pay $1,200 for a case and they'll go and sell each bottle for $1,200, right? And those small winemakers who are producing small amounts of wine for very elite clients, they're not getting rich off the wine. They're not reaching and they're reaching a tiny elite group of wine drinkers, right? I mean, it makes infinitely more sense to reach a wider audience at a lower price point.

• 27:09Speaker 05

  Yes. And that was, that was, I think, we were paying very close attention to the different.

• 27:18Speaker 05

  Aspects of the wine making process that translate to quality. And how could we craft these wines in a way in which by the end, once it passes through importation, distribution, retailer, once it gets to the consumer, it's still this really, really high end wine and product that over delivers in the quality.

• 27:42Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 27:42Speaker 05

  But isn't going to break the bank.

• 27:44Guy Raz?

  Right. And the goal eventually, in your minds at least, was one day we are going to have our own, we're going to make our own wine? Or were you not quite there yet?

• 27:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, that was the eventual goal, but it was fast tracked by 2008. And so when the financial crisis happened, you know, the global, global economic financial crisis, we had a couple of things going on. There was a bumper harvest in New Zealand. So very, very large harvest that created this huge surplus of wine. All those fantastic restaurants, you know, that had those, the clientele with the, the large expense accounts, they all dried up. Yep. And, you know, restaurants for the most part, make a pretty good revenue off of their alcohol and their wine. So they stopped paying their bills.

• 28:36Speaker 05

  And Robert and I got to the point where we just said, wow, this is really, really hard. Trying to figure out how we're going to survive this. And came to the conclusion that if we were going to keep on doing this, we should do it for ourselves. And at this time, it was like now or never. And this was a time that we should make the jump and start a wine company.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Naturally.

• 29:03Guy Raz?

  I love this. You're thinking, hey, you know what? Let's just, let's just use this opportunity, this financial crisis, economic crisis, to, to actually double down on our business and, and pivot.

• 29:13Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  When you say it, it sounds so crazy, but yeah, that's exactly right. It's like, well, we've got to do something. So we're not just going to sit and be overcome by, you know, this, this crisis that's going on. We, we have to be strategic in some way. And so we felt like for the amount of effort and energy it was going to take to keep any business afloat right now, it might as well be our, our own, for our own products.

• 29:39Guy Raz?

  So how were you going to do that? I mean, presumably, there's a glut of wine in New Zealand on the market. Was the idea that you would kind of take advantage of that glut and buy up some of that wine and then put your label on it?

• 29:53Speaker 05

  Well, we had that problem from the beginning, which is cash.

• 29:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah, right.

• 30:00Speaker 05

  So for us, it was looking at strategic partnerships. So looking at this problem of there was this excess of New Zealand wine. Everybody at New Zealand wants to be in the US market. How could we partner with an already established wine company that had infrastructure, that had all the things that we couldn't afford to do? And we could find a synergy in them really being like the infrastructure, us making the wine, and then us now having the expertise, not only to make the wine, but also to import it, distribute it, and sell it in the US market.

• 30:39Guy Raz?

  Who did you find? Who did you find a partner with?

• 30:42Speaker 05

  The company doesn't exist now, but at the time, they're called the New Zealand Wine Company. And in 2009, Robyn and I made our first wine together under the Eco Love brand.

• 30:55Guy Raz?

  This is the brand that you created with this winemaker?

• 30:57Speaker 05

  Yes, yes.

• 30:58Guy Raz?

  And just to clarify, you were going to have a role in sourcing the wine, and then this company was going to bottle and distribute it. So like, did you go down to New Zealand and sample a bunch of different wines that they were making? Or was it already made? Or did you, like, how did you decide which one you wanted to?

• 31:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, so like, the four years prior, Robyn and I had been sharpening our skills, you know, and learning how to make wine. So we were very particular.

• 31:28Guy Raz?

  You were going back and forth to New Zealand?

• 31:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, so we were very particular in knowing exactly, from a growing perspective, what we wanted, and then from a winemaking perspective, what we wanted the final product to be. In Marlborough, we have the Northern Valley, called the Warrao Valley, and then we have the Southern Valley, called the Awatiri Valley. And the Warrao is the older.

• 31:53Speaker 05

  Part of Marlborough and it's much warmer. And the Awatiti Valley in the south is a lot cooler and it's more exposed. And as a result, in the wines, in the northern part of the region, you get wines that are, that have this more tropical flavor profile. A lot of passion fruit, a lot of gooseberry, and then also peaches and, and also red grapefruit. Versus the Awatiti Valley is jalapeno, tomato stalk. And Robin and I felt, felt very passionately about producing a wine that had a very tropical spectrum of flavor.

• 32:38Speaker 05

  And that's what we produced.

• 32:40Guy Raz?

  So you went down there and you knew what the flavor profile was? And did you literally, like wine, like wine producers will literally tell, you know, the vineyard, pick the grapes now, right now. Like I'm, I'm tasting this grape, please, we want them right now. The sugar levels in the grapes are perfect. Were, was it, were you doing that at that point or not quite yet?

• 33:01Speaker 05

  Absolutely. And, and this is the thing, like the most amazing thing, and this is really, really specific to seven year blanc grapes, but putting a seven year blanc grape in your mouth, all the flavor, just in general, when it comes to wine, comes from the grape skin. And, and putting this grape in your mouth and just tasting like the flavor and the skins gives you a vision of potentially of where it's going to go. Once you, once you harvest, once you pick, once the fermentation process starts, you really don't have a lot of control.

• 33:33Guy Raz?

  How do you, this is, this is a bit of a digression, but how do you, because when you are going at that time, and you still do it now, but when you, when you're going to a vineyard and you're picking a grape and you're popping in your mouth, first of all, wine grapes are really sweet, right? The sugar content is much, much sweeter than table grapes, right? Because you need all that sugar to create the, the alcohol.

• 33:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:56Guy Raz?

  How do you know when it's the right hour or day of the week to pick them? How do you know? Because it's going to taste.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  There's field tests. There's field tests you can do also.

• 34:06Speaker 05

  There's science.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  You go and pick some grapes.

• 34:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's chemistry between.

• 34:11Guy Raz?

  So it's not, it's not just like your palate and the magic of it?

• 34:15Speaker 01

  I mean, I wish, I wish my, I wish my mouth could properly calculate bricks in the grapes. But there is a way to go out and to, you know, grab a baggie full of grapes and take them back into the lab and measure the, the sugar contents to see where it's at.

• 34:29Guy Raz?

  Right. All right, so you partner with this wine, New Zealand wine company and they bottle this wine. And by the way, how much did you want to sell each bottle for? This is 2008, 2009. What was the idea? What was the price point you wanted to hit?

• 34:43Speaker 01

  What was that, 16, 14?

• 34:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, between 14 and 16.99.

• 34:48Guy Raz?

  So not super inexpensive, but affordable? And how much wine did they, did they, how many bottles or cases did they end up producing and shipping to you?

• 34:58Speaker 05

  So our first, our first vintage, I think it was 2,000 cases.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  It was nearly 3,000 cases.

• 35:04Speaker 05

  Okay, Robin, Robin's the keeper, keeper of the coin.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm, I'm the keeper of the books. But I think after the first year, it was about 12, 12,000 cases.

• 35:13Guy Raz?

  And at this point, because it's now, you're 2009, you're in the, really the heat of the financial crisis and really an economy that's slowing down. Were restaurants your target or now were you shifting to targeting retailers?

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Both. So, so we were still knocking on doors. We were still going to, you know, restaurant accounts that survived. And then we started to, there was a lot more sort of neighborhood wine shops. Also that were, were coming around, independent, you know, retailers.

• 35:47Guy Raz?

  What was, and, and how many employees did you have at that point in 2009?

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Two.

• 35:52Guy Raz?

  Two.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  I mean, me and her by two, yeah.

• 35:55Guy Raz?

  Yeah, right. And then maybe some people like sort of working part time or on contract to help you sell. But it was a tiny operation. You were, and still primarily in California.

• 36:04Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 36:05Guy Raz?

  In LA, San Francisco.

• 36:06Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 36:07Guy Raz?

  And just literally going to wine shops or wine bars and personally like pitching this wine.

• 36:14Speaker 05

  Yep, and I think the biggest breakthrough at that time, somehow somebody tipped us off that at major corporations across the United States.

• 36:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Speaker 05

  And even within grocery, there was a department called Supplier Diversity. And the sole function of the Supplier Diversity Director was to identify women and minority-owned businesses to try and help bring them into those grocery stores.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  I think it was through Super Value, right?

• 36:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  But Super Value was a large grocery chain in the middle of the country, I guess. And they had a Supplier Diversity Director. And we were like, what is, what is that?

• 36:59Guy Raz?

  What is that?

• 36:59Speaker 01

  What do you do?

• 37:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:00Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 37:02Speaker 05

  The person at the time was a man by the name of Michael Byron. And I remember Robert and I flew into Minneapolis. That's where Super Value was based. I think it might have been like January or February.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  January. It was 11 below.

• 37:17Guy Raz?

  And this is in like 2009, 2010?

• 37:20Speaker 01

  10, 11, something like that.

• 37:22Speaker 05

  Would have been January 2011. And him really like giving us the lay of the land of like grocery retail, like a real education, and then letting us know like that he was, he was there to really help us understand that customer and how we could be successful. And even better was, he said, you know, I'm going to help and I'm going to support you, but where else do, where else do you want to sell wine? And I said, I said, huh? And he said, he said, yeah, we got a whole network of us. And like the next day, he sent out emails to Target, to Disney, to all the major like Kroger,

• 38:04Speaker 05

  all the major Fortune 100, you know, companies in America, like getting us a seat at the table.

• 38:11Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 38:11Speaker 05

  You know, grocery has always been really important to us because we felt like that's where women shop and that's where we wanted to be.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Right. And so, Costco plus World Market wanted to put our wines into their stores nationally that then for the first time took us outside of California.

• 38:31Guy Raz?

  I mean, I imagine this was a huge, like a huge breakthrough for the business, but, but, but I imagine it was still not, you still weren't like, you know.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  We weren't rolling in dough, no.

• 38:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah, you weren't rolling in dough, yeah. Did you, I mean, it's interesting because between 2009 and 2011, right? Financial crisis, a lot of businesses go under, but, but I suspect that wine is one of those weird things that does okay, right? Because it's like, it's a small thing that, you know, makes people feel a little bit better and it's a nice little luxury, right? Is that, is that what you saw?

• 39:07Speaker 05

  Exactly, exactly. It is, I don't want to say it's recession proof, because the channels in which you operate definitely play into when a recession hits, for sure, when it comes to the wine industry. But I would say for the most part, you see that consumption lessens out in restaurants in what we call on-premise accounts, but more consumption happens at home.

• 39:34Guy Raz?

  This is, I mean, you, you kind of alluded to this earlier, but the, the whole like wine making world, and it's changed a lot, of course, but there is this kind of culture, right? It's still, you know, overwhelmingly made and produced by men. Most of those men are white and. Did you guys encounter, you know, along the way, winemakers who were dismissive or who were, I don't know, a bit condescending to you? Or did you find more winemakers who were actually generous and really wanted to share what they knew?

• 40:09Speaker 05

  I think there's, there's two different sort of sides to this. I feel like for the most part, people on the winemaking side, on the grape growing side, are pretty jittery and welcoming in terms of time and information because at the end of the day, as much control as you hope to have, Mother Earth dictates what's going to happen. And I definitely feel like there is a community, a really big community aspect to the wine, the, the growing and the winemaking side of things.

• 40:37Guy Raz?

  Right, because a lot of wine, a lot of wine doesn't, winemakers don't grow their own grapes. They're grown by farmers who, and people have plots on those, right? And they-

• 40:46Speaker 01

  They're farmers and, and wine is just, I feel like it's one of those, you know, kind of old school mentality, just in the terms of you are open with information and with assistance to your neighboring farm. I think it's a little bit different, however, when you move away from the agricultural side of it and the winemaking side, and you get more into the business side when you're dealing with gatekeepers, when you're dealing with wholesalers, distributors and retailers. It's very different than the, the base of the winemaking and agricultural side.

• 41:22Guy Raz?

  Did you ever come across somebody who you, you tried to sell wine to and they were just like, "Ah, it's terrible." Like it was kind of snobby about it?

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Well, there's a lot of really snobby people in wine.

• 41:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  But I don't think anyone's ever said to us, at least not to our face, that our wine was terrible. And quite honestly, I, I don't think anyone would have a reason to because we work hard to make sure that we don't make, make terrible wine. But I mean, there's definitely, you know, depending on what part of the wine world you're in, where you're definitely going to face some pretentiousness, you're definitely going to face all of the things that a lot of people really find intimidating and distasteful about wine. And that's lessening, I think, you know, over the years. But it's been an unfortunate, an unfortunate side effect of being in the wine industry.

• 42:13Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I'm wondering, because I think, I think like right around 2015, you guys entered into another partnership with Diageo, which I think is either the biggest or one of the biggest alcohol beverage companies in the world. And, and again, like you're sourcing the grapes and you're blending the wine, but it's still distributed by Diageo, right?

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:37Guy Raz?

  And I'm just using this as one example of a partnership you did, which makes sense, because then you don't have to go out and raise a bunch of money, and they're well capitalized, and you can have a partnership. But, I mean, and this is a tricky question, okay? Because the wine you're producing is your idea. It comes from your minds. It comes from your experience. It comes from your palate. It's your intellectual property. But I'm assuming that when you do a partnership, it doesn't work out that way. Is that right?

• 43:06Speaker 01

  It's quite complicated, honestly. And, you know, there's a lot of ways that you can structure those kind of partnerships, whether it's, you know, a marketing and distribution relationship, or production, or what have you.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  But at the end of the day, no one is going to have the vision that we have, right? I mean, that's, you know, unique and specific and generated by us, for us. So even in the best situation, there's still going to be some elements of where, where a larger company and an entrepreneurial vision is not going to align.

• 43:41Speaker 05

  And look, like, Robyn and I, we're too much. Like, we're the most.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  We're a lot.

• 43:47Speaker 05

  You know, like, we don't sleep. Like, this is our passion. And then, you know, then when you are partnered with a company where, you know, for a lot of people, you know, they aren't as passionate as you.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  They were sleeping on the weekends. It was crazy. It was like, not, how do you do business like that?

• 44:06Guy Raz?

  And big bureaucracies, there's, you know, right?

• 44:09Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  And don't, and don't get us, and don't get us wrong, obviously, like, it was a, it was a short partnership, but we learned so much, you know, we're so grateful that we had that experience. But at the end of the day, we're still, we're still scrappy agile entrepreneurs with a very, very strong vision.

• 44:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 44:26Speaker 05

  Who we are, like, through our rosé-colored lenses, the way that we see the wine industry is very, very different. If we were going to bridge this gender gap that happens in the wine industry and... Make the wine industry more inclusive than we had to do that by ourselves. Because politically, within these strategic partnerships, it was just too difficult.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Right. And, you know, we had to realize that, you know, this is something that we simply need to do for ourselves.

• 44:59Guy Raz?

  So what did you do? Like, how were you gonna make that happen?

• 45:03Speaker 05

  So we went to lunch one day and this is sort of at the time in which Robert and I are really heavily talking and thinking about like our future and, you know, should we stay with Diageo? And then we went to lunch with Aspire and he said, I get your vision. I see, I see what you guys are trying to do. Have you guys ever considered just breaking off on your own and creating a McBride Sisters, completely like McBride Sisters, brand?

• 45:37Guy Raz?

  And your answer was, yes, we have been, of course.

• 45:40Speaker 05

  Since 2005.

• 45:42Guy Raz?

  And what store was Aspire with, by the way?

• 45:44Speaker 05

  So it's Kroger. Kroger is the company.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was kind of like, I don't get it. He's like, I don't get it. Why are you guys making, you know, all these things? And quite honestly, it just, you know, we weren't quite sure how much brand equity there was in putting our own name on the label.

• 46:00Guy Raz?

  But your answer presumably was, if I'm with you, I'd have been like, yes, we want to do this, but we don't have money to do this.

• 46:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. And so, so we said, absolutely, like, yes, we want to do it.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  I just want to add, like, as, as any proper entrepreneur, you, you say yes and then you go.

• 46:15Speaker 05

  Figure it out.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  And you freak out and you figure it out. You figure out how to make it happen.

• 46:22Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how that lunch with the guy from Kroger turns into a life-changing deal with a nearly impossible deadline. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 46:56Guy Raz?

  And one more thing, the New York Times bestselling book, How I Built This, is now available. It's a great read and a great gift for anyone looking for ideas, inspiration, wisdom, and encouragement to have the courage to put out an idea into the world. It's filled with tons of stories you haven't heard about how some of the greatest entrepreneurs you know and respect started out at the very bottom. Check out How I Built This, the book, available wherever you buy your books.

• 47:37Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So before the break, we heard how Robin and Andrea were about to end their partnership with the multinational company Diageo and launch their own independent wine company. And right around the same time, the sisters had a meeting with a buyer from Kroger who told them he wanted to stock his grocery shelves with McBride Sisters wine. But the question was, could they do that all by themselves?

• 48:06Speaker 05

  And this is September of 2016.

• 48:10Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 48:11Speaker 05

  And, you know, he's talking about going on shelf in March of 2017. And at this point, you know, we have no significant, I mean, we're talking about to do this as multimillion dollars to be able to pull this off.

• 48:28Guy Raz?

  How were you able to do that without going? I mean, I imagine that there may have been investors who were approaching you, saying, we want to invest in your business. Am I, am I, am I right?

• 48:39Speaker 05

  Hmm. Uh, not enough.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  We wish. I mean, you know, you have to remember that in terms of, you know, investors and investments, you know, black women are the least funded, you know, of all entrepreneurs. So there was still, you know, sort of a perception of some risk or some unsurety, you know, black women aren't seen in this space as, you know, having a history of being successful, if at all, even being present. So, no, there weren't people beating down the door to invest in our company.

• 49:13Guy Raz?

  And, and basically, this buyer for Kroger says, okay, it's September of 2016, and the buyer says, by March of 2017, we want this on our shelves. That's, that's insane.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, that means it needs to be, like, shipping to their locations in January or in February.

• 49:29Guy Raz?

  How much wine, by the way, was, did you have to make for that order?

• 49:32Speaker 05

  25,000 cases of wine.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  That year, for the first year.

• 49:35Guy Raz?

  And you didn't even have a brand yet?

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 49:37Speaker 05

  Correct.

• 49:38Guy Raz?

  So you've got to get moving. You've got to get this wine made and bottled and a label designed and slapped on that and shipped to you in six months.

• 49:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:49Guy Raz?

  You sound very relaxed about this. I am, I am really nervous. I am really nervous.

• 49:55Speaker 05

  Well, because we're on the other side of it now. So, but basically, Robyn and I had to go out to a bunch of people and say, trust us.

• 50:04Guy Raz?

  In New Zealand and California, wineries.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Yep, all over.

• 50:08Guy Raz?

  And it was all going to be Sauvignon Blanc?

• 50:11Speaker 05

  No, no, this is four varieties. So this is Sauvignon Blanc, sparkling brut rosé from New Zealand, and then a Chardonnay and a red blend from Central Coast of California. And just keep in mind that 90, 90% of the, like, 10,000 wineries in the United States make less than 5,000 cases a year.

• 50:32Guy Raz?

  Wow. So, so, but this is September. So this is like the end of the harvest, right? In California, at least.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  It's harvest. It is. It's right in the middle of the harvest.

• 50:39Guy Raz?

  It's harvest in California. The harvest in New Zealand is the other side of the calendar, right?

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Our spring, yeah.

• 50:44Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And so you, presumably, you have to go to these wineries very quickly and find the, the wine, the blends, and make this wine, and convince them to make this for you, and fast.

• 50:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, so we had to, so we had to find what we call components. So we had to identify, you know, wine that was already made, find these components that fit our quality standard, blend up all of these wines at the same time, negotiating contracts with growers for the coming three vintages.

• 51:21Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 51:22Speaker 05

  And basically saying to these people, we don't have any money, but we promise that we'll like pay you.

• 51:28Guy Raz?

  Pay you when we get paid.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  And quite honestly, it was even more complex because we did, some of them, we did have to go to vineyards and find grapes that were available. And then we also needed to find a facility where we could make our wines. And we also needed to get licensed to do so.

• 51:46Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  And then we also needed to get our wine, our domestic wine making team together. We needed to get our compliance and our operations and distribution team together. We had to get national distribution ourselves. Like there was an immense.

• 51:59Guy Raz?

  In six months, you had to do all this in six months.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  I mean, we had to do that really in like 90 days.

• 52:05Guy Raz?

  Sounds absolutely terrifying.

• 52:07Speaker 05

  Exciting.

• 52:08Guy Raz?

  Exciting, yes.

• 52:09Speaker 05

  It was very exciting.

• 52:11Guy Raz?

  Thrilling. Presumably you're, at this point, like, most of that, that those grapes are spoken for. Most of those wine facilities are already, they've already got contracts.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  It's called finesse.

• 52:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's called finesse.

• 52:24Guy Raz?

  But you had, I mean, you had, of course, some relationships already in New Zealand and California.

• 52:29Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 52:30Guy Raz?

  Did you have to beg and plead with some of these people?

• 52:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. But at this point, you know, we had a history. We did have a name for ourselves. We had a track record of success. And we did have, you know, the largest seller of wine at grocery in the United States saying, you know, we want to bring in your product. So that went a long way.

• 52:53Guy Raz?

  Did you make the deadline?

• 52:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:56Guy Raz?

  You did. So by March of 2017, you were shipping, these were being shipped to Kroger.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  It was on the shelves. We started shipping in January. We started shipping January and February, and it was on the shelf across the country by the beginning of March.

• 53:08Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  I will say, though, I think I lost like 40 pounds or 30, 30 or 40 pounds. No, literally, I did.

• 53:15Guy Raz?

  It was crazy, right?

• 53:17Speaker 05

  I lost some hair. I lost like 40 pounds, but we made it happen.

• 53:20Guy Raz?

  And so, did you, how did you get the word? How was, how did the word get out about the wines at Kroger? Did they do demos? Did they promote it?

• 53:28Speaker 05

  I think, you know, by this time, all of our packaging, even though it's like very simple, we know how most, 99% of consumers label shop, you know? And so, we were really very like, very particular about building in these quality cues that we knew that if the, if people didn't know anything about us, we knew that our price point was right, we knew that the packaging, the quality was right, we, the varietals that we chose were very specific to popular varietals from the regions that we grew up.

• 54:02Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 54:02Speaker 05

  And that would carry us a really long way.

• 54:06Guy Raz?

  What did the labels look like?

• 54:07Speaker 05

  We created a family crest, of course, because why not? And so, the McBride Sisters crest is a combination primarily of, of two animals. At the top is a peacock. And so, this peacock is representative of our father, because he definitely was a cocky gentleman.

• 54:31Speaker 05

  And then, the peacock is sitting on the two letters MS, which is obviously for the McBride Sisters. And then, on either sides of the MS are two lionesses. And those lionesses are representative of either of our mothers, because they were fearless, you know, they ran the pride, they're out working, they're out bringing home the bacon, you know, and taking care of the kids. And so, we made our own family crest. And we created this crest in 2005 with the dream, you know, oh, we're going to have a winery one day. And so, it wasn't just created in 17, you know, it was, it was created back then.

• 55:11Guy Raz?

  And this was the first time you could use it on the bottles?

• 55:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:15Guy Raz?

  How did the wine do at Kroger?

• 55:17Speaker 05

  Exceptionally well. So, in terms of being a new brand, like into the stores, we were the number, the number one new brand in their stores, you know, at the end of 2017.

• 55:27Guy Raz?

  Wow. 2018 also a turning point. I guess you were, from what I've read, you were invited to sponsor, to be the wine sponsor for the Essence Festival, which is a cultural and music festival in New Orleans.

• 55:41Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 55:41Guy Raz?

  And you decided to produce a wine that is now one of your most famous wines called Black Girl Magic.

• 55:47Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 55:48Guy Raz?

  Tell me the story about, about that idea and how that came about.

• 55:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, so we, we got invited to host the opening party for Essence Festival. And every year you have 1 million black women descend on New Orleans over a three day period. And during the day, you know, it's this empowerment, sort of daytime conference. And at night, a music festival with headliners like Beyonce and Janet Jackson. And that year, there was just so much Black Girl Magic going on, from women becoming judges to, from a sports standpoint, from, you know, winning awards in entertainment, that, that it seemed really obvious, the best way to capture and honor, not only what was going

• 56:36Speaker 05

  on in the, in the moment, but paying homage to all of the women that have paved the way for us to get to where we are today. It felt like Black Girl Magic by the McBride Sisters would be something nice and festive, sort of to capture the moment. And then we, we decided that we wanted to make a riesling that was, the great rieslings of the world come from Germany, and also from the Alsace region in France. And so we were trying to bring our New World expression of this, and really elevating and creating a really super high quality off dry riesling. And we went to Essence Festival and, you know,

• 57:20Speaker 05

  we were sitting up for the event and putting the wines out. And it was just mind boggling. Like, we've never in our lives had people react to a wine label, let alone the wine, like we did at Essence Festival. And Robert and I just looked at each other and we're like, whoa.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  We were like, uh oh, we probably should have made more.

• 57:43Speaker 05

  Probably should have made more. And we need to make this into a range.

• 57:47Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 57:48Speaker 05

  And most importantly, I think unfortunately, the wine industry has just really ignored

• 57:55Speaker 05

  Black people when it comes to wine. And so really, we feel like Black Girl Magic is something, a term, obviously, Robert and I don't own. You know, we're stewards of this brand.

• 58:10Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 58:10Speaker 05

  And every time there's like a moment for black women in which they can celebrate, whether that's, you know, you got a promotion, you had a baby, you became a judge, you became a ballerina, like whatever it is, like, we just wanted to be able to be there to celebrate with her with just like beautiful, high-quality wines.

• 58:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah. You, so you, you're in retailers and you've got your, finally got your own label. And then 2020, the year of crises and misery for so many of us, pandemic hits. And that's the first challenge of this year. Were you guys worried that your, your business would be hit?

• 58:56Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  We were very worried and we took really, really quick measures, everything that we could think of to secure our business, to secure, you know, to make sure that we didn't have to let go of any staff. We just reduced expenses. We buckled down, you know, right away over the weekend because it was just too, too unknown.

• 59:17Guy Raz?

  And did you see an instant drop in business and revenue?

• 59:20Speaker 05

  No.

• 59:21Guy Raz?

  No?

• 59:22Speaker 05

  For us, because grocery has always been such an important channel to us, our business wasn't significantly affected as other wineries, unfortunately, that, you know, make 5,000 cases or less, they're heavily dependent on the reseller door. And so one of the things that, that Robert and I doubled down on at the end of 2019 was really putting together our e-commerce platform and really heavily investing into it with the goal strategically of slowly building it.

• 59:56Guy Raz?

  Direct-to-consumer model.

• 59:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, selling through our website.

• 1:00:00Guy Raz?

  Not knowing that there would be a pandemic. I mean, you, you were just assuming, just, I guess, assuming. But this will be a small part of your business, this direct model.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, we thought that we were just laying the foundation that we were starting to put the framework together to over time develop that sector of our business. And then, of course, come the pandemic, we were kind of like to our team who had started that work, we were like, guess what, it's go time. This is now the company's main focus.

• 1:00:30Speaker 05

  And then it also coincided with our children. So with Robin's daughter, who's the oldest, we always said, if you want to join the family business, that's contingent on you need to go out and work somewhere else and identify a void that we have that we don't do well, and then come back and interview for a position and come and fill that void and make the company greater.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Well. And she got her degree in communications and digital marketing and she went out and she worked for digital marketing agencies for two or three years. And then finally, she said that she thinks she's ready because, you know, like Andrea said, we were always like, when you have something that you can add to the company, let us know. So she felt she had enough expertise.

• 1:01:25Guy Raz?

  And here you are in the midst of a crisis where digital marketing skills are pretty crucial, pretty critical.

• 1:01:31Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I can tell you, we would, you know, we had like a shopping cart, you know, and an online platform with some wine for sale. And I didn't even really pay attention to the revenue. I know that sounds awful, but you know, maybe we'd do like $5,000 a week. I just, you know, it was such a small number in comparison

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Something minimal.

• 1:01:51Speaker 05

  to our wholesale business. And then she told us, she's like, I'm going to come in, I'm going to put together a strategy, and then I'm going to execute on the strategy. And she's like, and you auntie, and you mummy, you know, just need to like, let me do my thing. I think I'm going to be able to deliver the results and the return on investment that the company needs. And so, you know, of course, we're just like, okay.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, I doubt that, but we'll see.

• 1:02:21Speaker 05

  You know, and then really from the time, from the first week that the plan was in place, she took, you know, that revenue from five thousand to like thirty thousand. And I was like,

• 1:02:32Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 1:02:32Speaker 05

  I was like, whoa, hold on.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  To a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand to.

• 1:02:39Guy Raz?

  And, and, and, and this is like getting the word out through like Instagram and Facebook ads and, and digital ads and things like that.

• 1:02:46Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 1:02:47Guy Raz?

  Okay, so you've got this direct to consumer model. We're all in this COVID pandemic. You, um, you know, you are now finally reaching the customers that you felt were underserved for so long. And then we get to, um, May, June of 2020 and massive demonstrations against racial injustice in America, the biggest demonstrations in a generation in the United States. And you are, I mean, you're a black owned winemaker.

• 1:03:20Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 1:03:22Guy Raz?

  And on top of just contending with the challenges of the pandemic, you're now contending with the emotional challenges of watching this all over the country.

• 1:03:31Speaker 05

  Mm hmm. Yeah, it was, I think originally it, it was like, here we go again. And feeling like exhausted and defeated. And, and one of those moments where I think for myself, you know, I'm the biggest optimist in the world, but really in that moment, just feeling like, where do we go from here? And I think, I think, you know, we had this, um, opportunity for a light to be shone on black business owners with Blackout Tuesday. And one of the things Robin and I had been working on since January was at National Grocery, we're the only, a lot of the times we're the only black owned company, we're a lot of times we're

• 1:04:16Speaker 05

  the only woman owned company. And one of the things that we were working on was, you know, we shouldn't be the only one. And so we started to kind of look around and think about how can we help other people get here as well? And then we started to try and figure out like, is there, is there a list? Like, is there a list of Black Vintners, you know? And when we're talking about Black Vintners, we're obviously, we're talking about not just the United States, but in France, in South Africa, you know, you know, wherever. And we couldn't really find a really good comprehensive list. So we started putting together our own list. And then that night that we found out about Black Tuesday, you know, we called everybody in the company. And we said, you know, instead of just talking about ourselves tomorrow,

• 1:05:01Speaker 05

  let's shine a light on, you know, Black, this list that we have, it's like sixty, sixty-seven Black Vintners that we could find, you know, in the world. Like, let's publish this list and shine a light on our community. And I think at the time, maybe we had thirty-five thousand people on our Instagram. We have like thirty thousand likes on this post and it had been reshared. Like, can't even tell you how many times. But most importantly, a large percentage of the Vintners that we talked to were sold out of their vintages. And it just showcased for us like the power of our community.

• 1:05:43Speaker 05

  And I think for the first time, it was like, the power is really with us and our community. The strength of community is so important.

• 1:05:52Guy Raz?

  You know, I'm, at this moment where we're talking, you're, you cannot buy Black Girl Magic. It is sold out.

• 1:06:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  I'm the sister that's responsible for making things happen in a timely fashion. And we're actually bottling more today and for the next couple of weeks. So we will have some available for everyone very soon.

• 1:06:12Guy Raz?

  But it's a, it's a sign that suggests that you saw a spike in your business.

• 1:06:17Speaker 05

  Oh, significant, significant. And in May alone, we gained eight thousand new points of distribution.

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 1:06:26Speaker 05

  You know, these places where... You wouldn't expect to see wine being sold indefinitely at the price point in which Black Girl Magic is. It's nuts. You know, we have an awesome 7-Eleven in Texas that she was selling 3,000 bottles every three days.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Over the, over the weekend.

• 1:06:51Speaker 05

  For a $24 bottle of wine from 7-Eleven. She owns a 7-Eleven.

• 1:06:56Guy Raz?

  That's insane. I mean, I, I know that, and I know that you, you guys, you know, don't talk about your, your financials and, and I totally respect that. But is it fair to say you're selling many hundreds of thousands of cases of wine a year? Or you're on track to do that?

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  That's fair. That's fair. Yeah, that's accurate.

• 1:07:13Guy Raz?

  Wow. I mean, you have, you guys have been grinding at this for 15 years.

• 1:07:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Guy Raz?

  Right? I mean, longer than that, but really for 15 years, it's been a long journey. And you're now a significant player in the wine business in America.

• 1:07:35Speaker 05

  That's correct.

• 1:07:36Guy Raz?

  I know that throughout this interview, there were moments where you said, yay, we made it, you know, and you were kind of joking about it a little bit, but can you say that now? Do you feel comfortable saying that?

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  I think honestly, the same optimism that we started out with when we had a pallet of wine is very much what drives us today. At the same time, we feel that we have a long way to go. You know, I, I think some people might give themselves a goal of a certain, you know, number of cases or a certain, you know, dollar revenue. But Andrea and I, we dream really big and we always have.

• 1:08:14Guy Raz?

  Is your ultimate goal to, to have your own vineyards and your own grapes and your own production facility?

• 1:08:20Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:08:21Speaker 05

  One of that, one of the things that we were, we were looking at, at the beginning of this year and last year is, but still having a place for people to come and gather.

• 1:08:30Guy Raz?

  Like a tasting room?

• 1:08:31Speaker 05

  Yep, absolutely.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  To experience wine, winemaking, vineyards, wine, you know, lifestyle, culture, all of those things, you need to have a welcoming place for, for people to come and spend that kind of time.

• 1:08:46Guy Raz?

  So that is part of the hope and dream to find a plot of land where you can have some vineyards and a tasting room and a place where people can see how the wine is made?

• 1:08:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, and also a training place as well. So if you're a woman, if you're a person of color that's interested in the grape growing, wine making, or on the ownership side of the wine industry, this would be a place where you can come and feel welcome.

• 1:09:11Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:12Speaker 05

  So it's like, we would love to see more women as head winemakers. We would love to see more women that are the head of viticulture and grape growing. And then on the business of wine, executive leadership at distributors, making the purchasing decisions at retailers, you know, all throughout the business.

• 1:09:33Guy Raz?

  So here's something that is going to happen. In my experience on the show, interviewing, you know, hundreds of entrepreneurs with different stories, you have already been, or you will be at some point approached by a big company that wants to buy you. Because you are in a very, very desirable market and growing very fast. And you've got a really strong brand. Is there a world where you could see an exit like that?

• 1:10:08Speaker 05

  I can't call it. Like, in this moment, I'm very attached to my name.

• 1:10:15Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:16Speaker 05

  I think I can never say, like, no one's ever come to me and robbin' and said, here's a chick for $500 million.

• 1:10:25Speaker 05

  We don't know what that feels like.

• 1:10:26Guy Raz?

  But I mean, that could happen.

• 1:10:27Speaker 05

  You know, no, I can't honestly sit here and say to you, knowing that that's intergenerational wealth, knowing just the basic principles of compounding interest at a very low interest rate, of what that will do for the legacy of our children, our grandchildren, our great, great, great, and also philanthropically for the community that we want to support.

• 1:10:49Guy Raz?

  You can't rule that out.

• 1:10:51Speaker 05

  We can't rule it out, but I think that we can probably safely say, I mean, I think it's hard.

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  First to envision one because our personal name is not for sale. So that's a that's a little tricky. But also the brands that we create, um, you know, each of those brands has a very powerful uh, message behind them. And like Andrea said, that don't that don't belong, that don't belong to us necessarily. We see ourselves as the stewards um, of the the purpose behind them. So if, you know, in any exit or any acquisition, you know, there would have to be some very stringent agreements behind that. Um, I don't know that we can really think of any large wine companies that would be, you know, in a position to to to acquire what we think those are worth, that would be able to uphold the mission behind each of those brands.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  Not saying that it would never would happen, um, but I would, I would probably say it would be now or anytime soon.

• 1:11:49Guy Raz?

  I can't stop thinking about your dad and and what he would think about all of this. I mean, how you got to this place.

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:00Guy Raz?

  Because so much of the story is unbelievable. I mean, you didn't know the other sister existed. And then, you know, once you're both grown up, you eventually meet and then you form this incredible bond. And now you've built this highly successful brand. I I I just have to imagine that that your dad, if he was sitting here right now, he would just be blown away.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Well, quite, quite honestly, and now I'm I'm speaking as a sister who never actually got to know him at all. But from what I know of him, um, I don't think that he would have expected anything less from us. I think that he also um, dreamed very big. You know, he came from a very, very small, and I say small, like five hundred people or something, country town in Alabama, um, you know, moved himself to Hollywood um, and became a part of that scene and an actor and, you know, and everything that was kind of wild going on in Hollywood in the seventies and eighties. And, um, you know, my My understanding of him and my interpretation of him is that, you know, sky's the limit.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  Like, you can and should do, you know, whatever you set your mind to. So in my mind, and I've thought about that before, in my mind, I think, I don't think he'd be surprised. I think that if he was in our lives, he would have expected that we've done at least what we've done.

• 1:13:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I think, I think the context of our family, his family, of his generation, you know, Camden, Alabama, you know, our grandparents, our aunties and uncles, our father picked cotton. They're sharecroppers, you know, and I know in their lifetime, never thought that they would see a black president. I know that. So like Robin said, I think, you know, he dreamed really big, expected this of us. But I think the expectation also comes from all of our family

• 1:14:06Speaker 05

  in terms of what they did during the 60s and the 50s and all of the things that they fought for so that Robin and I could do what we do today.

• 1:14:17Guy Raz?

  They must be so proud of you.

• 1:14:18Speaker 05

  Oh, trust us. Auntie Annie Mae is very proud. You can't go to her house without her pulling out a magazine and telling you, well, let me tell you.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  She will tell anybody who listens, do not challenge her about her nieces. But it is very true, and you know, our aunt and uncle, our dad was the youngest of like 12, I think. So it's a very, very long generations, you know, they grew up in rural Alabama, just outside of Selma. So, you know, they did, they walked, you know, the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They were involved in the civil rights, you know, demonstrations and movements. And we're not unaware of how close we are, you know, and how our roots are so intertwined with, you know, all of this, this history and that we're not far from where all of it started. So.

• 1:15:05Speaker 05

  And we're in agriculture.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  We're back in agriculture.

• 1:15:10Speaker 05

  Like, like the history of black people in America is grounded in agriculture.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  Andre and I actually have a photo. We're able to go and visit the plantation house where our great grandparents were enslaved and where our father was born, in the back, in the, in the small house in the back. And I think that, you know, like his journey in life to move on from a lot of that difficult history was for the purpose of his children and Andrea and I being able to do something like exactly what we're doing.

• 1:15:46Guy Raz?

  How much of this story and the success of this business do you attribute to just your hard work and your intelligence and how much do you think has to do with luck? First to you, Robin.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  I would say 99% of it is our hard work and intelligence. And then there's a small percentage that I think is what people might refer to as luck. But I really think it is your ability to recognize opportunity and take advantage of it.

• 1:16:13Speaker 05

  Same thing. I feel like it's hustle, it's hard work, but it's smart hard work. And it's being able to identify opportunities when other people don't or maybe can't see those opportunities.

• 1:16:29Speaker 01

  They can't see it, yeah.

• 1:16:31Speaker 05

  And then I think in terms of luck, I don't know if I believe in luck. I think you prepare yourself, you're ready. And then if an opportunity presents itself, then you're the right person, the right place at the right time.

• 1:16:51Speaker 01

  Stay ready.

• 1:16:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, stay ready.

• 1:16:56Guy Raz?

  That's Andrea McBride-John and her sister, Robin McBride. By the way, in addition to the McBride Sisters collection and Black Girl Magic brand, Robin and Andrea have launched a third brand. It's a collection of four canned wines, a rosé, a sauvignon blanc, and a couple of spritzers. It's called She Can, and some of the money from sales goes back to a scholarship program for small businesses owned by Black women. Robin and Andrea say two of those wines are dedicated to their mothers and the other two to their daughters.

• 1:17:34Guy Raz?

  Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to write to us, our email address is [email protected]. If you want to follow us on Twitter, we're at How I Built This or at Guy Raz. And on Instagram, it's at Guy dot Raz. This episode was produced by Rachel Faulkner, with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. Thanks also to Liz Metzger, Derek Gales, J.C. Howard, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Farah Safari. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

• 1:18:19Guy Raz?

  This is NPR.