The Influencer's Influencer: Jermaine Stone of Wine & Hip-Hop
On vulnerability, authenticity, and our sense of place
I woke up extremely intimidated to write about the “Wolf of Wine.”
Jermaine Stone oozes cool the way a bottle of Coche-Dury drips class, and I want that, real bad.
I’ve spent most of my life a bit embarrassed about where I came from because absolutely nothing about me reads “cool.” I’m a middle-class, brown-nosing, Midwest suburban white girl who has always opted to dutifully excel rather than indulge my simmering ache to rebel. In the days of Covid and George Floyd, I learned about virtue signaling, white centering, and my scads of unearned privilege, and I shut the fuck up, maybe forever.
But here I am writing this. I am self-consciously stressed out, in this exact moment, because now I’m centering my own white girl story as I try to somehow front-load a bullshit apology for probably doing a piss-poor job of writing about a deeply authentic, beautiful, inspiring Black man who is brilliantly weaving together the worlds of wine and hip hop, and whose story deserves all the spotlights. But there it is: my caveat. My apology if I fail to properly convey how deeply authentic, beautiful and inspiring Mr. Jermaine Stone really is, and how close of attention the wine industry should pay to him.
Jermaine and I could not have grown up more differently. We could not look or speak more differently. And yet, meeting him for the first time, some 40+ years each into our seemingly disparate lives, I quickly found that we had more in common with each other than we had differences.
Maybe that’s a lesson for me, and for the world at large—if nothing else for the wine industry.
When I ask Jermaine Stone, the Emmy- and James Beard Award-nominated host and executive producer (AND SO MUCH MORE), if he were a wine, what would it be, he quickly and easily drops his answer: “Meursault.”
Fucking of course, I think, because Meursault is The BEST. So cool, so classy, so confident. It doesn’t pretend to be plebeian, because it’s not. It also doesn’t get hung up on its lack of any Grand Cru status, because it’s self-assured. It’s not boastful about where it comes from, but it’s also not ashamed of it. I pine. As Jermaine continues in his low, melodic lilt, “Meursault is stylistically very sleek, but also rich and complex wine, with great balance of acidity… and a sweetness—a sweetness that’s not sweetness just texture, just giving you that vibe. Complexity in the sense of having lots of different layers you continue to realize. The different eras of things I’ve done with my life have also given me that complexity, those layers.”
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past five years, let me lift that weight and give you an overly brief recap. Jermaine Stone grew up in the Bronx: “I was really outside growing up, in a great and structured way, like I was outside all the time, but I also had a house… I learned a lot of survival skills and been in a lot of high-pressure situations—people pulling out guns, you know—so your brain begins to think in a certain way, where now when a problem happens, it’s not life or death; we’ll get it done.”
He planned to become a rapper. “My parents let me rock after high school. But my friends started going to jail, stuff started happening very close to me. They urged me, ‘We’ll let you do the rap thing but also you have to do something else too.’”
He got a temp job packing boxes in the shipping department at Zachy’s and became intrigued by the wine world, by the generosity of people sharing wines with him, and by what he saw in the lifestyle of wine. “The life I was aspiring to live by following my passion through music (which was also a dangerous life!) versus people living this actual lifestyle I’m aspiring to—and no one is going to jail?! I saw so much opportunity in wine.”
He attributes his success coming up in wine at Zachy’s and Wally’s—where he went on to eventually manage full-scale logistics, auctioneering, and soup-to-nuts client services—to the mindset he developed growing up in the “school of hard knocks” with those aforementioned high-pressure situations. “Being able to approach a problem with a clear head and be able to manage people’s expectations, that’s why I’ve been able to be successful. You see so many people who haven’t had the exposure so haven’t had the need to create the opportunities for yourself. But even before any of those jobs, that’s how I was able to succeed at getting through life!”
Since 2016 he’s been flying solo with startlingly, inspiringly pointed intention on a strategic three-pronged front originally designed to leverage his consulting business—to get people to think of him as the first person to call when they needed to move their wine—but which now in actuality operates as a full-scale mini media empire that’s (THANK GOD) welcoming in a new, richer, more balanced, complex and textured wine drinking audience.
“Every single thing you see me doing now has been calculated to the T since 2016,” Jermaine says. I marvel at how astute his intuition was, how unmanufactured and uncontrived he comes across, crediting him for how, in a wine landscape now often dominated by “influencers,” he’s refreshingly authentic and wholly original.
“When I started, I was just using wine and hip-hop together because that’s what made me unique; it’s what I knew. I wasn’t out to get a million followers, I just wanted to stay in the wine scene. I couldn’t put out, you know, Instagram ads for being a fine wine consultant. To effectively do [wine consulting] I needed to establish credibility.” He set up three lanes: 1) his wine branding and marketing firm, Cru Love Selections; 2) his media projects (including the Wine & Hip-Hop podcast, Street Somm show and Wine Barz book series); and 3) events.
“Step 1 was establishing myself as an influencer, but I didn’t think of it like that. I never wanted to be a broad influencer; I wanted to influence the influencers. That puts me in a better position for my consulting. I wasn’t going at a mass audience, I was focused on getting and keeping the attention of the wine industry; same thing on the hip-hop side but within hip-hop. Because I already had those connections inside the wine industry, and I already had those connections in hip-hop, when I started Wine & Hip-Hop it was just me bringing my friends on the podcast! I wanted to create opportunities for hip-hop artists that didn’t exist in the wine industry before. I was really using that podcast as a calling card and to establish credibility in that space.”
I point out how original and brilliant as well as brave that move was, given that nothing had really bridged those two worlds in quite such a way previously. “Look,” he replies, “I thought, if I’m gonna be a fine wine consultant, let me just find a way to maintain my status in the wine industry and bring in a different audience who has a disposable income and just… bring these people in my life together. I realized I had friends who would spend $300 on a bottle in a club but who wouldn’t spend $30 on a bottle in a retail store. I was putting on this harvest party and friends were saying, ‘What’s a harvest? You keep talking about this harvest party, what is that?’ and I knew I had to find a way to make that type of fundamental wine knowledge interesting and relatable to those outside of wine.”
It was simple, but no one had done it before—pair wine and hip-hop?!—and as everyone and their mother strives today with boisterous marketing campaigns and “how do I set myself apart?!” hand wringing to desperately scrape out their own niche, chasing likes and followers and editing content to trail after trends, Jermaine just… leaned into who he was and embraced his individuality.
“You asked me,” Jermaine starts, “to tell you what’s bringing me joy and hope in this industry right now. And it’s that: Embracing who I am, embracing my individuality. I think that’s the cool thing about where we are right now,” he explains of the wine industry maybe finally, through all this doomsday rhetoric, at last waking up to the realization that our historic homogenization of wine and marketing approaches and tasting notes and settings in which wine purportedly “belongs” are not working—are not benefiting us or ensuring wine’s future. “You don’t have to be some great photo taker on Instagram, you just have to be present and be yourself. It’s enough. I love that the wine industry is finally starting to explore that, and I love seeing how what that means to everyone is different. Embracing individuality is helpful, and community is essential.”
He means that for our wine industry… but also for our world at large, and I start to remember that this is, in fact, why I fell in love with wine in the first place: Because it let me be both myself (a nerdy, often-overly-eager over-achiever) and to be in precious, manifold, genuine community (something I desperately wanted and, I believe, we all really, really need). When I very first got into wine, there was this couple: older than me, wealthy but humble, a Middle-Eastern man and Southern belle, who noticed my interest. They started inviting me to wine dinners at their home, to tasting events at their local wine shop, opening inappropriately illustrious bottles to share with me, even when I could never afford to return the favor. We had nothing in common with each other, but when we sat down around a table and each savored a glass of the same bottle, all our lines and differences blurred. We would talk a little bit about what we tasted, nodding along—though our descriptions differed—because our experience was shared. Our emotional connection was shared. We were being moved equally by the art form dancing across our palates while we physically communed. Sooner than later, the conversation about what we tasted would evolve into something inevitably more meaningful—about our interests, our families, our fears, our hopes. It didn’t matter that our age, our skin color, our bank accounts or our cars were different. Enjoying a wine together in person literally brought us around the same table as equals. These friends were generous with their wine because they could see it sparked something in me, and we felt a powerful connection over its enjoyment... over the community it fostered.
Jermaine continues his previous thought, pulling the same thread: “Just to share that experience of tasting a wine with other people is a community building event. When someone is really into wine—which I found when I started working in it—they enjoy sharing it and teaching people. And if you are eager to learn, then it’s a great mutual exchange. That’s one of the reasons why socially I was able to flourish [in wine]; now when we’re tasting together, we’re not just talking about this product, we’re talking about life. We’re on a level playing field. We can have a personal, intimate conversation. We can have vulnerability and authenticity. There’s opportunity there. That’s what I’m trying to do with my media and events.”
As he constantly points out: Hip-hop tells a story; wine also tells a story. Wine is a product of its environment; hip-hop is a product of its environment as well. The same way wine has a regional identity, hip-hop does as well. These worlds are more similar than they are different. We’re more similar than we are different. Vulnerability and authenticity—we all have it, and we all crave embracing it.
Jermaine observes that historically there have been all these traditional settings for wine where outsiders don’t feel like they belong, they don’t know how to show up, and they feel like they’d have to put on airs to do so. They worry they can’t be vulnerable or authentic. “It’s the same exact thing with hip-hop,” he points out. Instead, you have to bring the wine to them; have to put it into their settings, make it relatable to their lifestyle. And then show them settings like a wine tasting, where maybe there’s hip-hop, maybe it’s a huge party, people are letting their hair down, being themselves—authentic and vulnerable. And that’s what Jermaine is bringing us. That’s his genius. “Yeah,” he acknowledges. “It’s being able to exist comfortably in both spaces; that inspires people to realize, ‘Oh I can act like this here with these people.’ In wine, this kind of space and time didn’t exist before.”
Thanks to Jermaine, now it does.
Listen:
Wine & Hip-Hop Episode 101: What Pairs with Beef? (Pause) - Jermaine talks about what he’s been up to before segueing into breaking down and analyzing the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar… all while pairing it with wine.
Wine & Hip-Hop Episode 93: Certified Hustler IIII Featuring Loaded Lux, T Rex, & Cha McCoy - Jermaine welcomes sommelier-entrepreneur Cha McCoy with two Harlem battle rap legends, introducing them to the world of wine while comparing what’s similar between what they do and wine.
Watch:
Tasting Notes from the Streets: Chopped Cheese Sandwiches and Cornas - Jermaine hits Harlem bodegas with Angela McCrae from Uncorked and Cultured to combine the signature Chopped Cheese with Northern Rhône Syrah.
Street Somm: A Taste of NYC’s Immigrant Experience - Jermaine meets up with wine writer Shakera Jones to tour diverse NYC foodie destinations while pairing bottles with each meal.
Go:
New York Wine Club: Terroir Tapes Listening Session with Jermaine Stone - Jermaine hosts an in-person wine tasting exploring the elements of terroir in wine and hip-hop.
Hire:
Wow. I am so honored. This is a masterclass on storytelling. Thank you so much 🙏🏾🙏🏾