This Sommelier Is Accelerating Careers and Creating Community for Wine Professionals of Color

Wine is championed for its capacity to bring people together, but the industry is also notorious for gatekeeping who is invited to raise a glass at the proverbial table. Could the days of the old boys’ club be numbered, though? They will be if Alicia Towns Franken, executive director of Wine Unify, continues breaking down barriers: “We welcome people of color to the industry; we elevate them; we amplify their voices,” she says. 

The lack of diversity in the wine industry “is a conversation that we’ve been having forever,” says Towns Franken. She was the only Black wine professional in Boston for many years, and she describes the isolation she felt during her 11-year tenure as a wine director at Grill 23 & Bar as akin to “being by myself on an island.”

Originally from Chicago, Towns Franken moved to Boston to attend college and worked in restaurants to pay for school. One night at work, she tasted a glass of Burgundy that, she recalls, “made me stop in my tracks.” Inspired, she asked to get more involved in the restaurant’s wine program. Within a year, she took over the two-page wine list. “When I left,” she says, “it was 63 pages, selling $3,500,000 worth of wine a year.” 

In 2020, galvanized by the murder of George Floyd, Towns Franken joined forces with sommelier and winery executive DLynn Proctor and Masters of Wine Mary Margaret McCamic and Martin Reyes to create Wine Unify. “It was time,” she says. “If we were going to see change, we had to design it ourselves.”

In its inaugural year, Wine Unify selected 20 recipients for their Welcome Awards. To date, the nonprofit has granted over $350,000 in awards to 165 recipients from 37 states, with support from sponsors including Total Wine & More, Coravin, Gabriel-Glas, and the Napa Valley Wine Academy. 

For those with limited exposure to wine, Wine Unify’s Welcome Awards include Wine & Spirit Education Trust classes, group mentorship sessions, and a gift certificate to put toward purchasing wines for study and enjoyment. Those beyond the beginner stage can apply for an Elevate Initiative Award, which financially supports advanced classes, provides one-on-one mentorship from prominent individuals of color from all sectors of the wine world, and supplies winners with tools like the Coravin system to further their learning. “If we don’t know something, we know someone who does,” Towns Franken says. “Whether it’s a heads-up on a job opportunity or an internship, this network and community that we have created is amazing. It’s joyous work.” 

Beyond its awards program, Wine Unify’s Amplify Initiative spotlights the triumphs of diverse industry leaders and their contributions to the wine world as a whole. Towns Franken is not thwarted by naysayers and asserts that Wine Unify’s impactful work is “a win-win for recipients and the industry.” At a time when DEI efforts are under attack, Wine Unify is not backing down: “We definitively declared that we believe in diversity and equity and inclusion, and we were not going to change those words.” 

Beyond the solid wine education, Wine Unify award recipients gain something truly priceless — an antidote to the isolation Towns Franken encountered in her own career. 

“I always say that they come for the education; they stay for the community.”