How I Built This with Guy Raz - McBride Sisters Wine (Part 1 of 2): Robin McBride and Andréa McBride John

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

When we first spoke with Robin McBride and Andréa McBride John, we were so blown away by their story that we decided to turn it into two episodes. With hardly any money or connections, they built one of the biggest Black-owned wine companies in the world — a journey that began with an extraordinary family discovery: Robin and Andréa are half-sisters who didn't know of each other's existence until they were both young women. Robin grew up in California, and at the age of 25, she received a letter with life-changing news: she had a younger sister living in New Zealand. The sisters met for the first time in 1999, formed an instant bond, and soon realized they shared a deep interest in the art of winemaking. They began dreaming about building their own company—one that would open up the wine industry to people who often feel shut out of it. Order the How I Built This book at:https://smarturl.it/HowIBuiltThisSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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because even though millions of you are listening, I'm actually talking just to you right now. I need you to be there for me as well, and you can do that by supporting what I do and buying my book, how I built this. It is just out now and available everywhere, and it doesn't cost more than a few cups of coffee, and it's filled with wisdom and stories and ideas

that will have you feeling inspired and fired up to take on the world. So please, if you love this show and what we do, for you, do us one back and pick up how I built this wherever books are sold. Sometimes we would just drive with no like destination in mind and we would just be talking and we would kind of what we call now just drive and dream and we would just talk about like, hey, yo, what would it be like if we started our own wine company? That's so crazy. How could we possibly do that? We don't know how to make wine. We have no money. That's crazy. But how crazy is it, though? And then finally got to the point where we were like,

well, what's stopping us? From NPR, it's how I built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how two sisters who grew up on opposite sides of the world discovered each other, met for the first time, and then launched an idea that would grow into one of the biggest black-owned wine companies in the world, McBride Sisters. It's possible you've never heard of McBride's wine, and that you've never had one of their chardonnays or brute rosés or one of their blended reds, and it's even possible you don't drink wine at all. But I'm here to tell you, none of this matters for the purposes of today's episode, because even if all of the above

applies to you, this story will change some of the things you might think about business, about fate and destiny, about overcoming incredible obstacles, and mostly about love. This story is so epic that we decided it needed two episodes. So this week, you'll hear part one of how sisters Andrea and Robin McBride built the McBride Sisters Wine Company. And next week, you'll hear part two. I'll start with the basics. McBride Sisters Wine is now one of the largest black-owned wine businesses in the world.

There are roughly 11,000 winemakers in the U.S., and McBride's Wine is among the top 2% in terms of how much wine they produce per year. You can find their wines at most major stores like Target and Walmart, and they're also higher end, so about 20 bucks a bottle, but still designed to be accessible. especially to people who might be intimidated by wine culture. And this is the precise problem Andrea and Robin set out to solve. How to open up the sometimes intimidating world of wine appreciation to people normally shut out, young people, people of color, women, but also make the wine good enough to attract wine snobs. Robin and Andrea actually founded their business in 2005,

and they faced just about every barrier imaginable. They were young women of color with no immediate access to a winery, no money, and no connections. But what they shared was a passion, a deep abiding passion for wine. And something else they shared? A bond that was forged in a unification. The two sisters were born nine years apart. Both have different mothers, but share the same father. And for most of their early lives, neither sister knew the other even existed.

But remarkably, both women grew up in wine-producing regions. Andrea, the younger sister, grew up near Sauvignon Blanc Vineyards in New Zealand. While almost 7,000 miles away, her older sister Robin was living in Monterey, California, with her mom. My mom and our shared father divorced when I was a baby. and so it was only she and I. So she never remarried. She didn't have any more children. She really honestly didn't even date very much

that I was aware of anyway. Maybe she hid it from me, I'm not sure. And she didn't have a large family at all. She was an only child also. So it was really just her and I together in the world. We had a really strong bond and really quite dependent on each other. And when you were growing up,

you didn't have much contact with your dad. Right. None at all. You know, a little context. My mom wasn't thrilled with our father when they divorced. And, you know, it was no accidents that they weren't in communication. It was something that she wasn't interested, you know, in doing. So for me, from a really young age, I was just always, you know, as a child who has a missing parent, I was just always like, you know, where is he? What's going on? why isn't my dad in my life? You know, I had a lot of questions for my mom. And she was like, well, you know, she always told me like, well, you know, he's probably in L.A. somewhere.

And she's like, I don't want to have any communication with him. She's like, grow up and do your thing. Yeah, she's like when you're 18, you know, if you feel like you want to start a search to find him, go ahead and do that. And so I'd always planned. It was always something that I wanted to do because I did want to figure out who this mysterious person was and, you know, hopefully have. have a chance to meet him. What kind of things were you interested in as a little girl?

I was a really weird sort of child, and I think part of that has to do with the fact that, you know, I didn't have like cousins around and we didn't have a larger family dynamics. I was really kind of, you know, a loner a little bit, but that had me out exploring the world a lot kind of on my own. So, you know, just really curious about nature and the environment and kind of more of that than, you know, people and socializing, you know, in that aspect of the world. So, you know, kind of a little bit of a different child. Did Monterey feel when you were growing up? I mean, obviously there's, you know, in Salinas and Monterey and in some of the surrounding areas, there's a strong Latino population. When you were a kid, did it feel diverse or did it feel

pretty homogenous. Yeah, no, it absolutely was not diverse. And as a matter of fact, when I was in elementary school, I think I was the only non-white child in the school for a number of years. So quite homogenous, I would say. Did you, were you aware of that early on? Like, were you, did you feel different? Absolutely. And, you know, kids are kids, right? So they made sure that I knew I was aware of that and pointed out how I was different. And because I wasn't growing up with our father, who is black, you know, I'm biracial. My mother's of German heritage. I was, you know, literally the only one.

So it was quite confusing. I very much felt like an outsider, I think, in the community and wasn't quite sure how to process it as a little girl, but very aware that I was different than literally everybody else around me. When you, when you finished high school, what did you decide to do? Did you want to go to college? Did you want to just go right into the workforce? Yeah. So actually, I mean, academia was always a challenge for me, just in terms of the structure and the method of learning.

And by, you know, a couple of years into high school, I was just like, this is not for me. And I was a really bright child. And I kind of felt like, you know, I can learn anything that I want without all of this rigamarole. And I actually left high school early. I tested out early with there's a special test if you're too young to take a GED. And so I wanted to go to school and I went to the local community college.

I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do, but I really did love science. So I started taking some courses there. And then while I was, you know, this was, I was 16 at that point. Wow. And so while I was there like the following year, I started working at a little company that manufactured some electronics that were used in the scientific industry and industrial products. and I really became fascinated. Being in that environment just really sparked everything in my brain,

and I was just so excited by it. And I ended up staying at that company for 10 years. I just kind of grew through the ranks there. Wow, wow. So, I mean, you joined this when you were almost 16 or 17. Yeah, I was 17. I lied. I told them I was 18.

All right, we're going to hit pause and come to Andrea, and then we're going to come back to both of you. So nine years later, Andrea, we were born. Also in the United States, right? Yes, correct in Los Angeles. So for me, our father and my mother, they were married until I was about four or five and divorced. And around the same time my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. So she decided to leave the U.S.

And your mom, based on your accent, I'm assuming she was not American, right? She was from... New Zealand. New Zealand. Okay. So around that time when she was diagnosed, she decided to move back to New Zealand. Yeah. She was told that, you know, that she was terminal.

And then she decided the best thing for her and I was that we go back to New Zealand where she was originally from, where her parents, my grandparents were. and her brother, my uncle. So how old were you when you moved to New Zealand? I was six and a half. I was nearly seven. When I went to New Zealand, I went by myself. My mom had a business in Los Angeles. She had a lot of things that she wanted to tie up and sort of organize. And I think that her cancer advanced much quicker than they had anticipated.

And so she put me on a plane. down to New Zealand as a six and a half year old. And I remember at the time being, you know, on the plane by myself. And, you know, back in the 80s, there was still a smoking section. And I was really intrigued as to, I remember being intrigued as to like why there were these curtains that separated one part of the plane to the other. But it was, of course, it was all quite exciting sort of being by yourself. I remember going down and my grandparents and my uncle retrieving me from the airport.

And I just remember immediately it looking so different than Los Angeles. And I think what struck me was that there weren't really that many people. And there wasn't freeways and there wasn't a lot of cars. And where we were at the top of the South Island and Blenham, It was very green and there was a lot of farmland. And it was just very quiet. And from what I understand, your mom passed away pretty soon after you were there. Yeah, she was about, we were there about two and a half months and then she passed away.

So after your mom's passing, where did you live? Yeah, so my mom also, I think, had bigger, bigger. family than Robin's mom, but quite small in that she had just one brother and my grandparents were in their 80s when I was seven. And so I initially split time between my grandparents and my uncle. And then shortly thereafter, my grandfather passed away and then my grandmother passed away. And then I think my uncle felt like it was important. that I grew up with other kids and that I have a mother. And so at the time he decided that it would be a good idea

that I split my time between a foster family and with him. I think anybody hearing your story would be hard-pressed to figure out how you were able to just kind of get through your child. Right. I mean, and I think a lot of us just kind of forget children are super resilient. Like they're just, there's this kind of thing that they have, this kind of mysterious power to just kind of carry on. How would you describe your childhood? I mean, so many challenging, difficult things happened to you at an early age. But do you feel in general that despite those things you had a kind of a normal childhood? I wouldn't say normal. I would say that given the situation of being a ward of the state and in a foster care situation that I was very lucky that the family that I was placed with, who I call my mom today, is just an exceptional woman and wasn't in the practice of having foster children to collect checks or whatever, sort of, you know, some of the horror stories that you hear. she legitimately wanted to have another child. And I'm very lucky in the sense that that situation could have been much worse. And I think in light of that, it was a very, very good situation.

I think there's definitely challenges in when you're a kid trying to figure out why you're in a foster child or foster care situation when you have family and why you're just not with that family. So that's really difficult. And I think to your point, point, children are really resilient. Do you remember as a kid feeling, I mean, I asked Robin a version of this question, but I mean, obviously New Zealand is primarily, you know, people there are primarily of white European origin or Maori origin. Did you have a sense of your own identity? Did you, did you feel different? Yes. I think, I definitely.

stood out and you touched on it the indigenous people to New Zealand are Māori. We also today have a lot of people from the Pacific Islands, but in the 80s, especially in the South Island, there were not a lot of Māori people and they were definitely not a lot of Pacific island people. And, you know, the slave trade didn't go through New Zealand. So you don't have people of African descent. So I was very dark compared to what people were. were used to seeing, you know, I was obviously very different than when you look at, I guess, physically what Māori people look like. I'm six foot one now. So I was, you know, I was this very tall, lanky, darker to them child. And as Robin noted before, you know, kids made sure that

that I knew that I was different. And even adults too, you know, it was something I was very, very aware of. other people definitely highlighted that. I guess as a teenager, you were a pretty good athlete. I mean, really good athlete. Did you, you ran track and field and played volleyball? And did you kind of throw yourself into that? Was that kind of your main focus as a teenager? Yeah, that was, I guess for me that was like one of my,

because reflecting now, didn't probably realize it in the moment, but was quite angry. And I think that sport was my coping mechanism, you know, And where I could get out that frustration and anger. And it was my vehicle to deal with a lot of the things that I was going through at the time. Andrea, did you know you had any other blood relatives out in the world? No. I, as well, I thought I was an owning child until I was 11.

Robin, did you know that you had any other relatives out in the world? I did not. Although I knew it wasn't out of the realm of possibilities, given that we hadn't been in touch with my father for so many years. But I just didn't know. I just didn't know. And you didn't know you had a sister. Right.

Did either of you when you were girls or teenagers start to get curious about finding or looking for potential relatives or not quite yet? No, I mean, for me, I think my experience was, you know, I'd gone down to New Zealand, I'd stopped communicating with my dad. I think maybe in my mind I thought maybe he had died as well, you know, that was sort of like the reason that we had stopped communicating. And I was young, so I think, you know, I just, I just don't think I would have processed or been thinking,

about like maybe there could be other siblings. I think I was, I hadn't gone down those rabbit holes yet. So neither of you really knew a whole lot about your dad. Because I guess Robin, you were just a baby when your parents split and Andrea, you weren't much older. But suddenly, I guess, like in 1995, he resurfaced, right? And Andrea, he reached out to you in New Zealand, right? Correct. And how did you hear from him?

I was with my foster family. Me and my brother Ben were, my foster brother, we were just watching TV, cartoons, you know, after school, and the phone rang. And I was kind of like the closest one to the phone. So I picked up the phone. And at the time, I really couldn't understand what the person was saying. and I thought it was like one of our friends kind of like playing a trick on us. I remember that like the voice was like super deep and bassy. And then I just heard the words, Andre, it's your dad, it's your daddy. And, you know, pretty emotional time to say the least. And, you know, in that conversation, he was just sort of telling me,

where he'd been and that, you know, that he was so happy to have found me, and that I had this big sister, and her name was Robin McBride, and that unfortunately as well that he had been diagnosed with cancer, but he was going to beat it. He said all that he had one phone call. Mm-hmm. Wow. So you knew that you had a sister, but didn't know how to find her. Correct, yeah. It was really surreal because when our dad first reached out, you know, I think him being optimistic and wanting to beat cancer, you know, that was just his personality.

And for me, I remember thinking. like oh here we go again and I remember with going through with my mother having cancer and me being so young going to the hospital her getting chemo all these things were just normal you know there was no context until after she passed away so I was like oh wow here we go again and then I think because he wanted to be so positive and optimistic um it got to a point where I was like, okay, well, yeah, maybe he is going to beat this. And, you know, he got back in contact with me. And, you know, during this period of time where, you know, writing letters, we're talking on the phone, we're building our relationship up.

And then I remember my foster mom calling me and just saying, hey, Andrea, your dad didn't want to tell you, but he's actually really, really sick. and you need to go to America right now. Sorry. And he passed away before she arrived. Sorry. So I think that I had felt like I had lost everybody that I really loved the most. I mean, at the same time, Robin, you were living in Monterey, and you were totally unaware of your dad's condition or where he was or

or even the fact that Andrea existed. How did you find out about your sister? So, you know, from that point when our dad was able to make contacts with Andrea, his family stepped in to help with the efforts to try to find me. And, you know, between the point of our dad making contact with Andrea and between the time that they found me was you know, three or four years, I guess, that it took. And I had actually moved from California, from Monterey to Atlanta. And I was working in Atlanta. And evidently, our father's family had started to look up through public records and whatever means were necessary. I hear that there

was an episode of Oprah that helped them with some tips to, you know, how you've located. somebody who you're not in contact with, and they started sending letters out to people that they could find with my name. They knew my name. Yeah. The family had my birth announcement, so they had my full name. But still, Robin McBride. I mean, there must have been hundreds of Robin McBrides in America. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure how many, how many they actually sent letters to, but eventually one arrived at my mom's address back in Monterey. And what did that, what did that letter say? Yeah, she called me because she was a little, she was a little off guard because a letter arrived from last name McBride in Alabama, which is where our dad was originally from. And she fully was not expecting a letter from him or his family.

So she said, I've got this letter and it's dressed to you. Do you want me to open it? So I was like, yeah, absolutely. And in the letter, it was written by our aunt, our dad's sister, who lives in Camden, Alabama, which is a little tiny place. outside of Selma, and she introduced herself in the letter and said, we're reaching out to you and, you know, I want to let you know that your father's passed away. At this point, he had passed away in 1996, the letter I got in January of 1999, and said that your father's passed away, and we went desperately to find you. You have a little sister. Her name is Andrea, and

And, you know, at the time she was 16 years old and she lives in New Zealand and, you know, we're desperately trying to find you and connect the two of you. I'm sorry. I have little kids. I get really super emotional when I hear it for my kids. Yeah. I mean, was that just totally shocking to you? It was absolutely shocking because, you know, I had not yet started my own search to find our father. And, you know, as a little girl who's missing a father in her life, I think, you know, there was always a hope and a dream, you know, somewhere that I would one day be able to meet my dad and kind of fill that gap, you know, that's created by having, you know, a parent who's not there.

So just reading that first line that he had already passed away, you know, sort of all at once, it kind of, I was very emotional and, you know, I had to deal with the fact that I was, I was never going to know that person. He was never going to see me, you know, as a, as a grown woman. And that was really difficult to deal with sort of all at once. But, you know, here was this other bit of information that I have a sister. And so, although the letters, you know, stated that she was in New Zealand. And so I was like, I wasn't even sure where New Zealand was exactly on the map. So Yeah. I was a little concerned that it might be difficult to meet the sister, but, you know, with

that information, there was a phone number on the letter. So I was like, well, I need to just just suck it up and suck up all the emotions and sort of the disappointment and the reality of the situation with my father, but I need to call our family and, you know, learn about the sister that I just found out about and how we can potentially meet. When we come back in just a moment, what it was like when they eventually did meet. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

And just one more thing. The How I Built This book is now available. It's a great read and a great gift for anyone looking for ideas, inspiration, wisdom, and encouragement to have the courage to put out an idea into the world. It's filled with a ton of stories you haven't heard and how some of the greatest entrepreneurs you know and respect started out at the very bottom. Check out How I Built This, The Book,

available wherever you buy your books. And please, if you support what I do on this show, you can show that support by picking up How I Built This, the book. And thanks. Welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the late 1990s, and Robin McBride has just received a letter that says her father has died,

and that she has a 16-year-old half-sister named Andrea, who's been living on the opposite side of the world in New Zealand, and the two of them have never met. So in that moment, Robin's life basically turns upside down. But very soon after receiving the letter, she picks up the phone and reaches out for the first time to her father's family. Our aunt answered the phone and bless her heart.

She was very excited that after all of their efforts for so many years that I was calling her and I think I didn't really get much information. What I got was a lot of shouting and screaming and celebration and I didn't really quite understand why at first, but that was because Andrea was in Alabama. She was with our father's family visiting them for the first time. She came to visit for the holidays. She was there when you received that letter in Atlanta? She was.

And again, yeah, so I was in Atlanta and Camden, Alabama is probably a three and a half hour drive from where I was sitting at that moment. So very unlikely that the timing was what it was. But our aunt was, you know, very excited that it happened when it did. and she actually said, hold on, talk to your sister. And I was very confused because my sister lived in New Zealand, I thought, according to the letter. But of course, Andrea was sitting in her house. So within a moment's notice, I was on the phone with this new sister that I didn't know I had a few minutes ago. Andrea, do you remember what, I mean, that must have been such a strange and even awkward conversation?

It was really surreal because, I think for me, even though I had known about Robin for four years, I think in the context of how I learned about her and our dad passing away, I had pushed it off into this place in my brain where I was just, it wasn't a reality. Robin, what do you remember about the phone conversation between the two of you? I think I remember that I wasn't prepared for it. On top of that, she had a very strong New Zealand accent. So when the phone was passed over to her, and I was like, like, excuse me, who is this? And, you know, she was like, it's Andrea. And, you know, it took a moment to really try to figure out how we could possibly be on the phone.

But we did have a brief conversation, and we made plans to, to meet in person. She was going to New York the next day and I was going to meet her there. The next day? Yep. She was going back to New York to go back to New Zealand. She was going to New York to meet some more of our dad's family. A couple of our uncles and cousins that lived to New York, a lot of our dad's family sort of migrated from the south up to New York. And so she had already had plans to go and meet them. And so I said, well, I'll meet you there the next day. Wow. And where in New York were you going to meet? We made plans to meet in the most beautiful place we could think. of, which was LaGuardia Airport.

So next day, you fly to LaGuardia, both of you, and what do you remember about seeing your sister for the first time? Did you, did you, like, go to her gate? Did you? Well, I don't, I honestly have no memory of between the time that she and I spoke to the time I was on an airplane to go meet her. So whatever happened there, I don't know. But I do know that I suddenly started to become very anxious about the situation en route. Not that I was, you know, afraid of her, but I just, you know, I knew I was going to become a different person once we met. Yeah.

Your life was going to change. Yeah. So the journey just seemed excruciatingly long. And when we met, this is pre-9-11. So Andrea and our uncles and cousins were at the gate at the same. the airport, awaiting my arrival. So you walked off the plane and they were waiting for you at the gate? Yes, they were all there. A large group of people was there, who I didn't know.

Never met. And never seen pictures of. And that's one of the things that it's, you know, we didn't have, I don't know who I was looking for. And, you know, I'm biracial. I wasn't quite sure if she also was biracial. You know, I just didn't know, I didn't know who to look for. Yeah. And I had to have, as I was. you know, debboarding the plane,

I had to really, like, go through some sort of mental exercises to calm myself down because I was kind of, I was kind of freak out a little bit. I'm freaking out right now. You're freaking out for me.

So, you know, I was talking to myself. I was trying to, you know, use every, like, sort of mantras I could think of to just censor myself. And as I was doing so

and walking off of the plane and I looked forward down the jetway and I saw my, I saw myself in a reflection at the end of the jetway in a mirror. And I'm telling myself, you can do this. You know, don't, you know, kind of shed all of the anxiety. And you're here now this is going to happen. And I realized that my reflection that was looking back at me wasn't walking as I was walking.

It wasn't you. It wasn't me. It was my sister that was waiting for me at the gate. And I realized that we actually do look alike. Exactly alike, actually. Yeah. And, you know, I was able to recognize her and identify her. And I just remember, I say this little girl, but she was very tall already at that point.

But this young girl, you know, and her eyes were just completely wide open. And I could tell that she was also thinking the same thing I was, which is, you know, oh, my gosh, am I saying my sister for the first time? Wow. And yeah, that was the first time that we laid eyes on each other. I think that the real world is more complex than a film, right? Because in a movie, you would say, oh, instantly we fell in love or we were bonded. But I wonder, Andrea, when you saw your sister, was there, did you feel like almost an instant bond? Did you feel like, oh, my God, this is me.

I'm looking at me. I did. And even hearing Robin talking about that, I'm the baby sister and I'm clearly like the emotional one. Because, you know, even to this day still hearing that, it makes me super emotional just because my sister is so precious to me. But to answer your question, yes. You know, I just remember, like Robin said, I felt like, like I was a deer in headlights. And I just like immediately locked in on her. And, you know, we just locked in on each other. And crazy thing is we didn't say anything.

We just kind of like magnets. Just hugged. Yeah. And, and cried. And I think at one point, maybe, you know, three or four minutes in, I think I might have said, you're Robin, right? For us, you know, there was an immediate bond. I mean, you had so much catching up to do.

You had 16 years, Robin, you had 25 years of catching up to do. Andre, did you know at that point? I mean, you were eventually going to go back to New Zealand, but did you, in your mind, kind of know that you had to figure out how to be near your sister at that point? Immediately. It was so life-changing for me. Yeah. You touched on this before. Sports initially early for me was kind of my vehicle of kind of dealing with a challenging upbringing.

And it would be the vehicle that got me back to the United States and got me close to Robin. You decided that you would figure out how to get back to the U.S. as an athlete, on an athletic scholarship. Yes. And you did. You ended up at USC. I did, yes. And you went to USC because Robin, at the time you were living, where were you living? I had moved back.

After we met, I moved back to Monterey. Back to Monterey. I moved back to California, anticipating that she was going to choose one of the California universities to go to. So you go to USC. And really, but the real reason was to be geographically closer to your sister. so you guys could be together. So clearly the both of you knew that you were going to, the rest of your lives were going to be in the same geographical area.

Correct. Oh, yeah, no, I was there to pick her up at the airport. Her and her giant javelin. Yeah. You brought a javelin with you? She did. She traveled from New Zealand with a javelin. I was a javelin thrower.

I got to bring my javelins with me. So you had, I mean, you had, so back and forth, and you were probably spending like holidays in Monterey or vice versa. Yeah, we, we traveled. I mean, back and forth as often as we could. It's, you know, we're in the same state. It's not super close between Monter and L.A. is probably five or six hour drive. But we took every opportunity we could to spend time together.

And Andrea, you know, it was great because Andrea got to come up to Monterey and see where I grew up. Yeah. Eventually, I got to go to visit New Zealand. we found out that they're remarkably similar. It's crazy. We realize they're pretty much the exact same places just in different sides of the hemisphere. And then, you know, we would sometimes meet in the middle,

which is not a whole lot between Montere and L.A. Except for wine country and agriculture, kind of meeting in the country and meeting a different, you know, wineries are places off the side of the road. So that's what we did for the next few years. Were both of you just, I mean, obviously you come from New Zealand, which is a huge winemaking part of the world, and you haven't come from Monterey, which is a huge wine making part of the world. And so I'm not surprised both of you were into wine, but both of you were into wine. We were.

Yeah. But it was different, though, because I think, you know, for me, my entry point to wine was my grandparents were always involved in agriculture and there were farmers. And then in the 1980s, specifically in Blenheim, the region is known as Mulbra, started to go through this transition of thinking about seriously becoming a commercial wine-growing region. And so there was a lot of people that might have been farming tomatoes, peas, potatoes, that looked at the opportunity of planting vineyards from scratch, planting this grape called Savagnan Blanc, and then collectively selling it to the largest brewery

in the country at the time also was a winemaker, selling it as grape growers to this brewery. And it's crazy because, you know, at that time, you would fly into this region and there would just be all these fields, you know, everywhere. And now you fly into Melbourne and it's just vineyard. There's no more plant. Vineyard.

Yeah, there's no more plantable area. And so, you know, splitting time between my uncle and my new family, when I was with him, you know, when you're in an agriculture family and you're a kid, you are free labor. Yeah, you're picking grapes. Well, even before the grapes are ready to harvest, like, you know, we were running posts in the ground and running wires and bench crafting plants and planting them in the ground. And so my introduction to wine was from the growing perspective. Wow. And definitely was convinced I was never going to be in the wine industry. Because it's so hard.

Yeah, farming is very hard work. And then for me, it connected the dots of how all this love and this care and this dedication and hard work and community of people that it takes to take care. care of grape vines for the purpose of making wine, how that translated into this beautiful glass of wine. And Robin, were you, do you remember having conversations about wine? Because your sister was young. Like, it's pretty rare for any college student to be into wine.

Like, oftentimes they're into, like, jello shots or, right? They're drinking. I agree. Yeah. And she, we would have these conversations. And it just so happened that it was sort of a time in my life when I, I, as a young adult, I sort of began my own, I guess, a wine journey for myself. Previous to that, growing up in an agricultural community, I really admired and appreciated

the family wineries and vineyards that were around. It was sort of like there's this, I don't want to say there's a hierarchy, but it was kind of like, you know, we have, you know, lettuce, spinach, strawberries, artichokes, and all these things and then wine had become sort of new elevated form of agriculture in monterey and the salinas valley so it was kind of like this really you know kind of i don't know the bougie sort of thing that had been going on when i was growing up so it was like i always admired that and some of the families that were um sort of you know neighboring where i lived were at the head of that but um for myself i had just everyone in wine sort of has their aha moment it's it's really corny but everybody does right

And so for me, it was at a friend's house where we were watching TV and we were having a meal of Italian food. And there was a bottle of Merleau that we had been drinking. And then we drank it all. And so my friend brought out another bottle of Merle. And, you know, which is fine. It was like, we're out of wine. We need more. And so she opened that up.

But just in that, the difference between the two bottles of wine from the first bottle to the next bottle was the same grape. It was the same vintage. It was the same sort of, you know, area of California. And yet the styles were so different to me. And it was the first time that it really stood out to me that there's an art in winemaking. And what about you, Andrea? I mean, clearly both of you were passionate about wine, but you were still in college and also still like really focused on athletics, right?

Yeah. My dream was to be an Olympian, to be a gold medalist. And I had a pretty bad injury. in which I came to the realization that like, you know, this was like, I wasn't going to get to that dream. And it was quite a depressing time, you know, because for, I would say since the time I was 14, seriously pursuing, you know, this Olympic dream. And then I think in conjunction with that, meeting with Robin and in California and really building our bond as sisters and as young women, when we would hang out and we would get together,

sometimes we would just drive with no like destination in mind. And we would just be talking. And we would kind of what we call now just drive and dream. And we would just talk about like, hey, yo, what would it be like if we started our own wine company? You know, what would it look like? What it would it be like? And then.

And this was just kind of like. Like just conversations that friends or sisters or siblings have like, hey, wouldn't it be great if we start a business together? It was like that. Yeah, it was, you know, that's so crazy. How could we possibly do that? We don't know how to make wine. We have no money. That's crazy. But how crazy is it, though? And then I think in conjunction with having this injury and realizing that, you know, I wasn't going to go to the Olympics, that I was a junior that pretty soon I was going to have to get a job in the real world. That, for me, at least, it kind of was like, what do I want, started to go through these questions. Like, what do I want to do it in my life? What do I love? Could me and Robin do something together? Maybe we could start a winery. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, really quickly at the time, we felt like we could do something that no other winery in the world could do. and that was that we could authentically make wine in two different hemispheres. And I think the thing for us that was very clear when we were exploring the wine world

was that it didn't feel very inclusive. But also, too, from a consumer perspective, I'm a millennial, Robbins and Genexer, were quite promiscuous in the way that we drink. and that like we don't want to drink the same thing every night. So we felt like, you know, we could really offer this like beautiful portfolio of wines that every night of the week, if you wanted to change it up, try something different, you could do that with us. All right. Robin, I just, I'm just trying to put myself in your shoes, right? Because, like, you'd been working, like, you had a job in the corporate world and, like, some experience there.

you were 30 years old. And one thing I haven't even mentioned is at this point, you were a mom, right? Yeah. Like over this whole period, you've been raising a daughter. So all this is happening. And then, like, this opportunity presents itself. But the wine industry is super tough. Like, it's super intimidating. So the first question I would have is, is all right. Like, what's the first step? Like, okay, do I want to start a wine business, a brand? Like, what do we do? And so how did you answer that question? Well, adding even more complexity to the situation, I had just given birth to twins. So, and that was kind of part of the deciding factor or our motivation because at that point, I was like, I have given all I have to give to traditional corporate America. Like, I have no more to give. And I have my daughter who's, you know, 10 at this point, and I have two brand new baby boys. And there's no way that I'm going to go.

and, you know, grind for someone else's company. It's just, it's not going to happen. I don't have all day to toil away for someone else. So, and, you know, timing being what it was at the same time, Andrea is like, crap, I need to think about my future and what I'm going to do. So for us, you know, all through our story, there's these points where it's just everything lines up and things are laid out in front of us. and we just happened to be good at recognizing these opportunities as are set forth.

But it's scary. I mean, you've got a 10-year-old and two new twins. And, I mean, a lot of people in that situation wouldn't be brave enough or courageous enough to start a business. Well, I'll tell you one thing that we clearly inherited from dear old dad is that both of us, we don't really have much of a fear factor in our genes. So there's really nothing that was scary to us about it. Scary is exciting. Yeah, exactly.

And so I think we're not really scared about the downside of any situation. We're also realists. So, you know, we realized that we had no experience in the business of wine. We also didn't have a bunch of money. We didn't have vineyards. We didn't have a winery. We didn't really have any of the ingredients that it would take to make a successful business. But what we did have was way too much confidence.

So we felt like it was something, it was a challenge that we were up for. And now we just needed to figure out what was going to be our point of entry into the business. And then I think it was just, we kept on talking about it. And then finally got to the point where we were like, well, what's stopping us? And that is where we're going to leave the story for now. I know, I know, but I promise it will be worth the wait. Next week, we'll find out how the sisters turn their business into one of the largest black-owned wine companies in the world. At that time, the wine industry was a very closed-off industry, not a lot of innovation, not a lot of disruption.

So we looked very foreign in these situations. I think in their mind they think, how dare you? Like the audacity, you know, don't you know how this works in this industry? More from the McRide Sisters next week. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also write to us at hibt at npr.org. If you want to follow us on Twitter, it's at How I Built This or at Guy Raz.

And on Instagram, it's at guy.org. This episode was produced by Rachel Falkner with music composed by Rumtine Arablewe. Thanks also to Liz Metzger, Dareth Gales, J.C. Howard, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Farah Safari. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This. This is NPR.