Dr. Stephanie Y. Evans

Mother Vines examines the rich history of Black women’s diverse global wine tastes. Over 250 Black women’s memoirs mention wine and reveal a deeply rooted tradition of enjoyment absent from discussions in the mainstream wine world. In this lecture series, Professor Stephanie Evans explores Black women’s international winemaking, drinking, and sharing and unpacks themes in her forthcoming book, Mother Vines: Black Women's Global Wine Memoirs (working title).

To introduce themes of pleasure, pain, and power in Black women’s wine writing, Evans examines twelve narratives that reshape the popular telling of the 1976 “Judgement of Paris” and the Bicentennial-era wine boom. She imagines how Black women’s memoirs complicate the meaning of Thomas Jefferson’s assertion, in the 1776 Declaration of Independence, that every person has a right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  Evans shows, for better—and for worse—Black women have historically pursued happiness through drinking wine.

Black women’s wine stories expand worldwide appreciation for this ancient beverage and unearth deeper roots of the relationship between race, class, gender, and drinking. Memoirs show that palm, plum, banana, blackberry, orange, muscadine, and honey wine are as present in Black women’s lives as champagne, cognac, or cabernet, and tastes also include sangria, sake, and slivovitz. This research challenges the erasure of Black wine professionals and disputes popular stereotypes that “Black women have no palate.” In fact, memoirs demonstrate how Black women’s palates include both the “old world and new world” but also reach beyond binaries. Memoirs are narrative “mother vines” that guide readers through Black women’s complex tasting experiences, spanning four centuries, forty wine types, thirty countries, and fifteen states in the U.S.

Evans shares her fruitful quest to discover the vibrant and complicated wine history of Black women oenophiles (wine lovers). Featured authors include seventeenth-century Afro-Peruvian mystic Ursula de Jesús, social activist Mary Church Terrell, jazz age club owner Ada “Bricktop” Smith, chef Edna Lewis, writer Maya Angelou, environmental activist Wangari Maathai, actress Diahann Carroll, singer Natalie Cole, entertainer The Lady Chablis, centenarian athlete Ida Keeling, and artist Grace, Jones. Wine memoirs reveal truths that are beautiful, ugly, and healing.

Evans, as the twelfth storyteller, creates a triptych, a three-part portrait of Africana drinkers as “Wine in the Wilderness” women, reminiscent of the Alice Childress play. Mother Vines offers a robust taste of fascinating journeys that re-root Black women’s voices into the global vineyard.

These stories also reflect wine as an element of Black women’s timeless quest for mental health,  wellness, and joy.

For more information about the Mother Vines project, visit: www.mother-vines.net