The Fizz #4: Rania Zayyat and the fight for inclusivity in the wine industry
In this interview, Rania and I speak about gender inclusivity in wine, upcoming events with Lift Collective and Be The Change job fair, and her experience with the Court of Master Sommeliers.
For the Fizz #4, I sat down over Zoom with Rania Zayyat, founder of Wonder Women in Wine (now called Lift Collective) and co-founder of Be The Change Job Fair. She hosts events that focus on increasing gender inclusivity and diversity in wine, and adding accessibility of resources for folks in the wine and general alcohol industries. Rania was featured in a breakthrough article by Julia Moskin in the New York Times highlighting sexual harassment in the highest ranks of the Court of Master Sommeliers, a now-disgraced accrediting body for sommeliers.
Rania is also the Wine Director at Bufalina Wine and Pizza in Austin, Texas. We talked about her many organizing initiatives, gender equality in the wine industry, where there’s room for growth, and what’s coming up next.
Margot: You started Lift Collective (formerly Wonder Women of Wine) in 2018—can you tell me about the organization and its mission? [Learn more about the other members of the Lift Collective team here.]
Rania: To me, this conference started on the heels of the Me Too movement. It was really in line with the energy that I was feeling from that movement, the inspiration that I saw. For the first time in my life, seeing women come together collectively to use their voices to demand change and stop normalizing the things we had normalized for so many years. It was at that time that I started to reflect back on my experiences in the wine industry, and specifically in the Court of Master Sommeliers, which was a significant part of my wine education. I realized I never felt truly welcomed—I always felt like there were certain key players within that organization that were basically corrupt and violating their positions of power for personal gain—for personal benefit, and it came at the expense of people like myself.
I hadn’t shared that story at that time, but I felt this momentum to put together an event where we had a safe space to talk about the issues that affected so many of us in the industry. I launched the two day conference on March 2nd and 3rd, brought together an amazing line up of almost 30 speakers—key players in the wine industry and around the country. We focused on topics like entrepreneurship, self-advocacy, power abuse, motherhood. That was the first day of the conference, and the second day was a walk-around wine tasting. That component was really important to me because I didn’t want to create an echo chamber of wine professionals just speaking to other wine professionals about these issues. I was trying to find ways in getting consumers involved in advocating for change with their dollars—where they spend their money on wine and how they shop.
It was a way for us to open up this fun and experiential event where people can come and meet different producers and interact with them, and be able to take those experiences and start demanding more diversity in the places where people buy wine—from the restaurants to the retail shops. It was a really powerful conference—we had almost 200 people there. The energy and momentum there really propelled us to establish ourselves as a nonprofit and do different types of programming between the annual conferences. We planned our next conference for March 2020, and then we all know what happened, [COVID hit]. We used the time to put our heads down and do the work, and figure out ways that we could better our mission and our programming, which led to us re-branding to Lift Collective. We really wanted to expand our mission and our programming to focus more on intersectional identities within feminism, and to be able to represent more marginalized groups in the industry. Now we’re planning our first virtual conference this year on March 23rd and 24th.
M: I’m curious around what you said about consumers getting involved and not being in that echo-chamber. In the industry, we’ll talk about “I’ve heard this producer here has harassed someone. I won’t carry his wines”, for example. But consumers don’t know that—the wines are all over Instagram, they love them. What do we do to include consumers in that conversation?
R: It’s a really good question and one I’m still figuring out. I have pulled a handful of producers off of my wine program, and I think I’ve seen a lot of retailers do the same thing. Sometimes I’ll be surprised though—I was just up in Portland and went to this Italian wine restaurant and the waiter started recommending Bressan, and they have Valentina Passalacqua’s wines, he was like “Oh I know this guy gets a bad rap for some of the things he’s said, but the wine is really good…”
[Fulvio Bressan is a winemaker known more for his racism than his wine. TW: horribly racist language, but you can read more on Bressan’s racist rants here. You can learn about Valentina Passalacqua and her issues with family labor practices here.]
M: Oh noooooo!
R: Yeah! I was just like “wow, really?”. I mean, to each their own, but it was very different from what I think we’ve normalized, saying okay, we didn’t know this before, but now that we have this knowledge, what are we going to do about it? I think guests are a lot more informed than we give them credit for. A lot of this has been reported in places like The New York Times and VinePair. Folks will ask me about producers saying “oh do you know about this producer? I maybe read something about them having labor practice issues”. There’s a lot to say about cancel culture, but still focusing on the people who have experienced harm in those situations needs to be the focus. If my contribution is taking them off of my wine program, then that’s what I’ll do.
M: Based on the 2020 Gender Survey Lift Collective recently did, only 31% of women understand how to increase their income in the industry, and only 28% feel comfortable negotiating. I feel like asking for more money in our industry is pretty taboo—maybe you work minimum wage, maybe you just work for tips, and in general folks face major economic manipulation. How do you think we can overcome that issue?
R: We saw significant difference in how men and women responded to that question—I think 64% of men said they do understand how to increase their income and 60% said they do feel comfortable negotiating. I think we need to be talking about pay transparency—it’s hard to know your value. I mean, it’s easier to know what you’re good at and what you can commit to and the types of projects you can take on, but it’s another thing to know what that’s worth when we’re so hush-hush about how people are getting paid. How do you know what to ask for if you don’t know what your superior is making?
So many wages in this industry are arbitrary. Unfortunately, we know there’s a huge gender pay gap still—a lot of it is just because of someone’s identity. If you’re a cis white male, you’re most likely making a lot more than women. Within feminist identities, there’s a huge gap between what Black and Latinx women make on the dollar and what Asian and white women make on the dollar compared to men. If you’re doing freelance work, what do you charge by the hour for certain projects? How do you build those fees? Within restaurants, unfortunately we know that the whole model of restaurants is such an unsustainable business model. A lot of my personal friends tapped out of restaurants because of the needs of their changing lives. They’ve moved into distribution, which is more corporate. There are other industries that talk about wages openly—it’s very well known what the way is to move up and increase your income. I’d like to have more conversations about what people are making and how we make it not taboo—that’s something I’m still figuring out.
M: Even those conversations about negotiation that I do see online, they’re for folks who are more in the corporate world. A lot of it doesn’t apply to your local sommelier or server.
R: Yeah. I’ve been in hospitality for 17 years and I still haven’t figured out the answer to that question. It’s hard.
M: Recently news of sexual harassment in the CMS was made public—you were part of that story. The Gender Survey said that 64% of female respondents said they were harassed or assaulted by a peer or colleague. I guess my question is—how do we move forward? Where do you think that the industry will change in response? How do you feel about the CMS restructuring?
R: I think it’s an important conversation to have. The number is not surprising by any means and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s even higher than that given margin of error. I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned from that experience, even since that story came out in late October last year, I’ve really gained a deeper understanding of institutions and how they’re harmful and how they get their power. It’s by brainwashing people into thinking that you need this organization or accreditation to be successful, but in actuality there’s a huge lack of transparency as to how people get to those higher levels within organizations like that. That’s how you end up with this imbalance of power and these people who think that they can hold your career in their hands based on what they want from you.
I know that some people consider it an impossible task to try and work towards dismantling an institution, but it’s definitely not a new idea. There’s a lot of talk about dismantling the prison system in the United States for example. These are things we thought were foundational elements of our culture and our society, but we can convince people that they don’t need those types of certifications—the knowledge is the knowledge. The pin is really just a representation of what you know. I think this industry is so based upon experiential knowledge more than accreditation. I’m going to continue to work to dismantle those systems. The more people that are choosing to step away and boycott organizations like that—that’s where that change is going to start. We have to stop trying to fix something that’s broken and just walk away from it. [We should] form meaningful community by contributing to collaborate with people who are doing good work in our industry. Community is essential to creating that change.
M: It’s cool to see how many resources there are now for people to study with. There’s a lot of free and accessible study resources—more people are doing wine education, classes, blogs. We’re on the right track.
R: We are.
M: What are some of your hopes for Lift Collective in the future?
R: [laughs] I’m always so in the moment that I forget to think ahead sometimes. I hope that one day there wouldn’t need to be an organization like Lift Collective. What’s great about it is that part of the rebrand focuses on being a collective and collaborating with other people. We started this, but it has grown into something much bigger than ourselves. I would love to put together scholarships for people. To me, one of the best parts of the organization has been putting together this network and connecting people. The informal mentorship opportunities that come out of those connections are great.
It’s about relationships—if you haven’t been able to historically be in those rooms where you can get together with these people who can make a difference for you—that’s been a huge barrier to entry. I’d love to see the community grow. I’d love to work with more organizations. We’re all, at this point, a lot of our team is working at a volunteer basis and we have other full time jobs. There’s so much we want to do, but we can’t necessarily do it all. That’s why that collaboration piece is very important. There need to be more people talking about these topics. More people talking means more people listening. That’s my dream.
M: Can you tell me about the upcoming conference in March? How are you including diversity as part of your mission? What have you learned in that gap year you took?
R: I’m really excited about some of the speakers we’ll be working with this year. One of our biggest focuses as to planning our panel discussions is to really dive deep into the meat of the topic and remove any fluff from the conversations. We want to arm people with resources and tangible ways they can actually go out and apply these conversations in their daily lives or to their jobs and interactions with people they work with. We’re really focusing on working with more accredited and diverse speakers that aren’t necessarily in the wine industry but maybe have an area of expertise that is applicable to the conversation. We’re also bringing more men in the conversation. We haven’t had a male speaker in the past. We’re trying to make sure we’re including voices from all the different communities we want to represent.
We want to have people of color, Latinx folks in the conversation. We want to make sure that the LGBTQ community is represented, and people with disabilities and older people and younger people. Making sure that everyone feels like they can see themselves in these positions of leadership. That’s been the biggest focus, but it’s actually been a lot easier to do that this year because there have been so many more connections and opportunities to get to know people and collaborate with them. Our network has grown exponentially and I’m excited to unite so many wonderful people this year and reflect back on what we didn’t know before. I’m grateful for a lot of those people who have given us the opportunity to learn and grow properly, ask questions, and do the work. It’s a very emotional process putting this together. We release tickets on the 25th. We’ll have some more announcements about who is speaking and the topics we’ll be covering then.
M: I’m stoked! I’m excited that its virtual this year—this way you can have so many more people join and have so many more people be a part of those conversations. It’s more inclusive now that it’s virtual, really.
R: Yeah, that’s a great way to look at it.
M: Besides being an organizer, you’re also a sommelier in Austin. What do you love about working the floor and the Austin wine culture?
R: I love the Austin wine community. The consumers here are so fun. I used to work in Houston and I was in a very rigid formal steakhouse environment, so it was really refreshing to me to come to Austin and be able to serve a community that I think values more accessible and affordable wines. That’s different from the type of clientele I worked for in Houston. There’s a lot more diversity on the wine programs here. People are more interested in trying things that they haven’t had before. It’s less about varietal conversations—I want a Cab or Grenache or Syrah—and more about the story of the wine rather than the tasting notes. I still refer to tasting notes for sure when I’m talking to guests, but people are much more trusting of wine professionals here. In a way, it’s this reciprocal relationship—you’re going to take care of me and get me a wine I’ll love in my price point, and I’ll continue to come back and support you, which is what we want.
We launched the first natural wine club in Austin back in April and it took off. It was so important for me to put that together because I knew that going into the pandemic and the wine tariffs last year, we needed to find a strong way to continue to support our distributors and importers. It really has strengthened those relationships in a lot of ways, and allowed us to continue to engage and educate consumers with tasting cards that go along with every pack, pairing recommendations, etc. It’s a younger city too. I think our generation is more adventurous, they care a bit more about the backstory of their products. It’s really fun.
M: Austin rules! You’re doing all this work in the midst of a global pandemic, which is not easy for anyone. How do you find your inspiration?
R: I read a lot. A lot of nonfiction and biographies or autobiographies by inspiring women in history. I really get a lot of inspiration from reading womens’ stories who have overcome a lot. To me, that’s my morning coffee. Get up and read something from a leader that I look up to. The pandemic, for me, and I know this is a privileged thing to say, but I was sad to let go of 2020. I was so emotionally attached to last year and to the personal growth that I experienced last year and the way I was challenged. Finding resilience in so many experiences, feeling liberated from that New York Times article that brought me a lot of healing. I think that I find inspiration from just putting myself out there and welcoming feedback and opportunities to learn from other people and apply those experiences to the work that I do.
M: What’s something in your life that you’re really excited about right now?
R: I’m really excited about the collaboration of Be The Change, which is a joint initiative between our organization and Diversity in Food and Beverage, as well as Cara Bertone and Philana Bouvier and Lia Jones. We launched the first virtual job fair focusing on diversity and inclusion last December, and we’re planning our second one for April 22 this year which will expand to the entire alcohol industry. It’s been a really meaningful project to be able to connect candidates with employers during this time and drive companies to focus more on implementing D&I practices into their businesses. I’m really proud of that project and I look forward to how it continues to grow.
M: Thanks so much for taking the time with me. I’m excited to see where Lift Collective and Be the Change are going. Really looking forward to the conference.
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Non-profit pairing: Rania supports The Roots Fund, which was “created to nourish and enrich the lives of Black and Indigenous people in the wine community.”
You can find out more about Lift Collective and Be The Change at these links. Follow Rania on Instagram here, to stay up on all of her upcoming initiatives.
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