Pour One with Jahdé Marley

Through Anything But Vinifera, Jahdé Marley combines community building, history, ecology and social sustainability.

WORDS Layla Schlack

E veryone in the wine world understands that things are changing in our environ­ments. For a lot of winemakers,­ that means figuring out different grapes that might grow better in their new climate, or trying different growing and wine­making techniques. But Jahdé Marley is looking a little further, to those people who aren’t using traditional Vitis vinifera grapes. Her ABV (Anything But Vinifera) Ferments program is a series of trade and consumer workshops to spread the word about other types of fermented beverages. In the process, she’s uncovering history and culture and creating a space for people who have been excluded from or marginalized in the industry.

You were in the wine industry for a while before starting ABV Ferments. Can you share a bit about your background?

I’ve always kind of been in the hospitality sector. Both my grandmother and my mother really glorified waitressing and tipping as I was growing up. So, once I got my working papers, I kind of wiggled my way into the industry and waitressed for a long time.

I turned 18, started bartending and really enjoyed the life around it, just being in the industry. I did that through college. And I got really into cocktails and wanted to like, do cocktail bartending in the city…I just thought that was the next level for me. And I was not able to get a job.

And then that SOMM movie came out and I was like, oh my god, they have certifications in wine. Spirits is all networking, and it’s, you know, a look, but with wine, I can get a certification. And that will be my entry into the industry. So, I got certified. And as soon as I got that piece of paper, I got a job like, literally two days before certi­fication. It was at a restaurant that was all Italian wine, and really deep in the native grapes of Italy…My first wine experience traveling to Italy and getting so deep into one region that was really centered in like, native agriculture, planted the seeds for where I would end up six, seven, eight years later.

So, that was kind of my entryway into wine. And then, these very specific, nuanced regional conversations really kind of harkens back to the Caribbean for me, and the diversity of our islands and rum, specifically, and just this warmth, to speak about spirits and beverages from the Caribbean and the global south with the same reverence that we spoke about wine. And that was the focus of my career for many years. Kind of like straddling this line between wine and spirits and just shouting It’s all about culture. It’s all about history. It’s all about the land. Why do we have this hierarchy?…

I joined my current company with Zev [Rovine Selections]. He’s given me the platform to just kind of run with the resources that I have in front of me with all of the autonomy to kind of execute my vision. So, through that, I’ve formed this wine portfolio called By the Hand. I like to say that it explores the intersection between social sustainability and environmental sustainability. 

It’s interesting to see the pieces of your journey that come together in ABV. So, when we say Anything But Vinifera, we’re talking about European wine grapes—Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, all of those things are vinifera. People have also historically made wines with apples and pears and some other grapes like Concord and Muscadine. Can you talk a little bit about what the options are for Anything But Vinifera?

Quite literally anything. We’re saying if it can grow, grow it… We’ve given all of our attention to these specific grapes to the point where we actually call them wine grapes. So, does that mean that any other grape that’s growing is not acceptable to be made into a wine? That’s problematic.

But we have coferments that are also shown within ABV. So if it’s like vini­fera and something else to kind of flesh it out and weave into that, they can show at the summit as well.

That said, we have Ashanta Wines, who is making this crazy elderberry coferment. They do a lot of foraging out in California, and that’s been really fun to see. Garrett Oliver is at Brooklyn Brewery. He has this project where he’s using [the African grain] fonio. And it’s not domestic, it’s coming from Central Africa, but just this concept of boosting local economies by using what really grows there. And leaning into that and not kind of trying to conform to what’s currently on market but really lean into what we have available is huge.

You’ve mentioned Concord and Muscadine, which we love. I think that Muscadine by the way of traditions, specifically with Southern Black communities and farmers, is huge. And we need to set the stage for these grapes to be taken seriously and to understand the flavors rather than just brush it off as something that’s off. It’s not off. It’s just unfamiliar.

And in this context, we have all kinds of hybrid grapes as well, which are going to be the crossing of these native grapes like Muscadine, like Concord, with these vinifera grapes to give us a more familiar flavor profile, while allowing the sustainability and farming aspect to really hold true and that they’re easier to grow in our soils and also expands our regional focus because of the different needs, specific weather and can only be grown in a specific area. Once you start to get into cold-hardy hybrids, moisture-resistant, mildew-resistant varieties, you start to be able to branch out.

We’re also going to incorporate some brewing. Anything that you can go outside and that you can pick if it has some sugar content, you can ferment the thing. Mangoes, we have mango wine. Go down to the Caribbean, there’s cashew wine. We planted passion fruit down in Miami at our paradise space that we totally intend on turning into a ferment once it is mature. We also did a star fruit ferment down there; it was star fruit guava.

Does it feel different to talk about wine made with hybrid grapes versus wine made with kind of foraged ingredients? Because there is more human intervention to create hybrids.

There can be. Grapes also naturally hybridize. We have Matt Niece, who’s also working on the West Coast, in tandem, oftentimes, with Chris from The 280 Project. They do a lot of great forging. And they took us to this little wild bush that was growing on the banks of the Russian River. And he was saying that, you know, grapes are resilient, because they’re able to cross pollinate so easily. They package foreign DNA. That’s why there is a case for terroir. And because there’s so much vinifera around, these grapes naturally hybridize.

So, if we’re looking to breed for specific traits, absolutely, there’s more human intervention. That being said, they kind of just do the thing.

I do agree with you that there is oftentimes more human intervention in grape growing, in general, because you want them to do a certain thing. I think there’s also cases for that, when you know, people speak about the harm of foraging, and how our environment is a little bit delicate at this point. And we want to be careful with capitalism and overharvesting and commodity.

I like to talk about everything together. Because at the end of the day, there are underlying themes. There are systems, which we can unpack if we have all of these conversations in close proximity, and considering all of the synergy and just kind of a concerted push to drive the conversation around all of them.

From an ecological perspective, why is it so important to use what’s already growing somewhere versus bringing in a new plant?

Well, so the way that it’s supposed to go is that food, fruit, agriculture, things that are growing first go to feed people. Like, it’s supposed to be consumed, first and foremost. You’re supposed to ferment it as a way of controlling spoilage. So, when you are bringing in other plants, it’s not [necessarily] harmful. If they don’t naturally grow there, it can be harmful if you have to beat this land into submission just to grow this thing.

First of all, it’s going to be way too expensive to even sell us food. So, you are now just using this land space to meet this luxury item rather than first seeing if other people can benefit from it in its whole form.

That’s one part of it. I think the other part of it is honoring the people who have stewarded the land before. That’s not to say that we can’t introduce things, that’s great, but we also have to champion­ and frame what naturally comes from a place especially when we live in a settler colonial state where so much of the native agriculture, the native culture, the Native people have been displaced.

Something that I share at the start of each event, especially because I want historically marginalized communities to come in and feel safe and soak into and that is their space, I let people know I’ve personally met every single producer that comes in here, like you can feel confident and safe going up asking for advice, asking for, you know, resources, if that’s what you need. It might not always be provided, but it’s not going to be met with any hostility or aggression. And when you come in, it’s not just to sell your wine. It was very important for us to make sure that our producers understood this is not a standard trade show… You also have to be willing to participate in this synergy and this exchange. So that goes in with the decentralized model.

Is there anything else you want people to know about ABV Ferments?

I would like to add that we are completely people powered. All of our donations­ come from our community and very small allotments, as well as a couple of community organizations that see that we’re doing great work. Our producers come in and participate for free, the first volume was absolutely free. This is a community offering. I think that’s important to highlight because folks will reach out and want to collaborate or want to support. And when they do reach out, it’s very much with the standard kind of tone of “Well, it’s going to cost this, could cost that,” but we have never been charged to be in any space, which is really a testament to the folks that host us, because I know that that could be you know, burdensome. So it’s just a big old community collaboration. And it’s why it feels so good.