An Idea Worth Tasting
Legacy Tasting
Norwood Vineyard Archive
Thursday, July 25, 2025
People almost always assume Norwood Vineyard is a winery, and the question, “do you host wine tastings?” comes up so often that it felt worth doing.
So it’s no surprise that the idea for what would become our first “Legacy Tasting” began as nothing more than a wine tasting on a Friday night. A pleasant evening, a few pours, good company - that was the plan.
Just a few weeks before we even had the idea of a wine tasting, I had wandered the galleries of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. The building held centuries of our stories, yet most of that history didn’t happen there. The museum was simply a keeper. A place for remembering, learning, and questioning. And that was enough.
After I returned to Atlanta, I kept thinking about the legacies that will never have a museum. The quiet work done in backyards and kitchens, in fields and small businesses. The kind of changes that ripple through a family, even if the rest of the world never knows they happened. I began to wonder if our vineyard, without walls or exhibits, could be a place for those stories to be shared.
I knew that if we were going to host a tasting, it couldn’t be just about wine. People should be able to taste a story, too. Which meant starting at the very beginning of what was in our glass.
This hunt for a story led us to drive an hour and a half south of Atlanta, in Byron, GA, where Dr. Darlene Roberts grows rows of muscadines on her 10-acre property, Roberts Vineyard, under the Georgia sun. We had planned to be there for half an hour with just enough time to sip, buy a bottle or two for the tasting, and drive home. Instead, my sister and I stayed for three hours, listening to her talk about the work, the land, and what it means to own and operate a vineyard as a Black woman in an industry where African Americans make up less than 1% of owners.
I left with more than bottles. I left with the weight of her story.
A few days later, on an overcast Friday evening, about twenty-five guests gathered at Norwood Vineyard. Dr. Roberts couldn’t be there, but her presence was felt in every pour. I told our guests about the history of African Americans in Southern winemaking and how many had worked the vines in the South, harvested the grapes, and shaped the tradition, often without owning the land. And then I said:
“Whether or not you like the wine is the cherry on top. You’re tasting the less than one percent. The chance someone took to plant something, grow something, bottle it, and bring it to this table. That alone deserves a legendary toast.”
My mother had styled the table with a lemon theme, a reminder of how often we’ve turned what we’ve been given into something sweet. We sat family-style, so you either landed next to someone you knew or someone you were about to know. There were no distractions, just glasses being refilled, plates being passed, and conversations worth remembering.
The name “Legacy Tasting” came to me after the last glass was poured. Because it wasn’t really about the wine. It was about the stories we carry, the ones still being written. And how sometimes, if you’re lucky, you get to taste them before they’re history.
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Credits: Table Styling by Always June
