Edward Lee “Mac” McDonald is the dean of Black winemakers in America, known affectionately as Uncle Mack. At 82, he cuts an endearing figure in his trademark denim overalls and straw hat, but don’t let the casual clobber fool you. McDonald is a shrewd businessman who has made a comfortable living and a name for elegant Pinot Noir with his Vision Cellars wine brand. These days, people in the know call him to acquire bottles of his library wines – the winery’s furture is “unclear”, MacDonald says; the 2021 vintage will probably be his last. He said he and his wife Miss Lil were drinking magnums.

A taste of red Burgundy as a boy set him on a quest to make a similar wine. He moved to California, and immersed himself in the fledgling wine community of the late 1960s. McDonald shares his insights on making Pinot Noir and what aspiring vintners need to know before launching a wine brand.

What do you remember about your first taste of fine wine?

I was around 12 years old in the sticks of East Texas and I tasted a bottle of wine. I didn’t know what it was; later I found out it was a bottle of Burgundy. I don’t remember the year. The only reason I knew it was Burgundy is these doctors always used to come down and go hunting with my grandfather back in Texas. I remember them talking about Communist wine. Anything from another country was Communist. He says boy would you like this bottle of wine? I said yes but I didn’t know how to open it. That was my first taste of understanding how different that wine was from the wine my relatives made from fruit. It wasn’t sweet, but I could tell there was fruit. I just thought it was pretty good. My family took cherries, peaches and pears and stuff that hit the ground, they put a lot of sugar in and they made wine. Making wine is nothing new to most African Americans. It’s the style of wine that is new.

I got to California because all through junior high and high school, all I talked about is I wanted to be a winemaker. I had no idea what that entailed. After having that bottle of wine, it led me to know there was something else out there than the kind of wine my relatives made. My high school coach would say that’s all you talk about. If you want to make wine you have to move to California.

How did you get people to take you seriously in Napa in your early days?

Napa wasn’t what it is today. This was around 1963 or 1964. I had to go to Mendocino County. It was real, real difficult. Number one, kids coming out of Texas don’t even know how to spell wine. And these guys are kind of macho and established and they probably never had anybody who looked like me want to do that. So it was a very difficult time, but I didn’t approach it in the wrong way. I approached it from the sense that I really wanted to learn about the business and growing the grapes. I always felt from my days working in a field and growing various fruits in Texas, it was all about the quality of the fruit that you wanted to get into, and not just to make wine. I was glad that I started wanting to learn about the vineyard first. So that let them know I wasn’t just coming up there to pick their brain on making wine.

How did you get your break in the wine business?

The people that taught me all about the wine business was the Wagner family. Growing grapes and all kinds of stuff, they taught me marketing. This was in the late 1970s.

I met Mr. Chuck Wagner’s dad [Charlie Senior]. He was out in the vineyard pruning. I thought he was just some old guy out there pruning. I didn’t know he was the owner. I thought his son was the owner of this Caymus wine. So I hung out with him for six to nine months before I knew who he was. He always had on an old straw hat with a bunch of fishhooks in it.

I was hanging out there for many years, about 16 years, you know [part time] washing barrels, smelling barrels, cleaning barrels, cleaning tanks, doping pump overs and press downs and all that type of stuff. I got so involved I didn't give a crap about getting paid. [At the time he was an working for Pacific Gas and Electric, a local utility company.] So after many years he says, ‘Son, you ought to be in the wine business.’ I said I’d love to Mr. Wagner but I’ve got no money. ‘He said don’t worry about it. We’ll help you.’ They found me a vineyard and we made wine in 1996. I didn’t think it was what I was looking for because I am very competitive. So I didn’t do anything with that wine and then in 97 I released the first Vision Cellars wine out of Marin County.

It may not be possible to master Pinot Noir, but what’s one of the secrets you’ve discovered to making memorable wine with it?

I remembered that Burgundy wine and I was looking for something like that again. And I tasted Pinot Noirs from all over California trying to find one I liked, and I couldn't find it. I just hung out with as many people as I could in the wine business and later after Mendocino County I started hanging out in Sonoma. Nobody was really concentrating on Pinot Noir. They made it like a big oaky Cabernet. I think they had too much new wood on it. The more oak you have on it, the more you hide the fruit.

I wanted to be able to taste the berries, wild Bing cherries and something we call Sherry apple in Texas. [Eventually] I found a winery in Sonoma County called Williams Selyem. The vineyard was the Allen Vineyard. I can’t recall what year it was. I thought that was good and then another one I thought was really good is Sanford down in Santa Barbara.

That’s why my wine is never over 20% new wood. I use two-, three-, and four- year-old barrels. I wanted to have fruit, and less alcohol and a lot less wood. I finally figured out that to grow good Pinot Noir you needed to have warm days and cool nights. And the soil condition has to be right. I learned all that from working in vineyards.

How has the wine business changed since you got started?

We sell most of our wine directly to consumers. We cut out all the others. But the states are making it harder. If you’re going to ship to Illinois or Texas you have to get a permit in that state and keep records and pay taxes directly to the state for that. In Alabama you have to ship to ABC stores. And shipping costs are so high now. It will cost $20 to $25 to ship one bottle.We sell most of our wine directly to consumers. We cut out all the others. But the states are making it harder. If you’re going to ship to Illinois or Texas you have to get a permit in that state and keep records and pay taxes directly to the state for that. In Alabama you have to ship to ABC stores. And shipping costs are so high now. It will cost $20 to $25 to ship one bottle.

[In other ways] I think it’s changed for the better because 20 years ago your wine [sales] were based on the ratings of your wine. If you got a 94 or 95 and you had 400 cases of wine, within two weeks you’d be out of wine. Nowadays these younger generations I’m not sure if they know what they’re looking for, [but] they don’t want to pay for a highly rated wine. They want to find something they really, really like. In grocery stores, $45 wines used to sell and now it’s $18.

Why did you found the Association of African American Vintners?

Quite frankly I don’t think the wine industry has done enough in the past to try to bring other people into the ranks of drinking wine. That was one of the reasons I started the Association of African American Vintners. To get more people to drink wine. I didn’t care if they liked my wine or not but to give them a taste for wine because nobody paid attention to that market. The Latino market, African- American market and the LGBTQ market; nobody paid attention to them, but now they are. That’s all changing how the wine industry works.

What is it that keeps more Black wine brands from getting national distribution— lack of capital, not enough business expertise or racial prejudice?

What people don’t get is that if you’re making less than 1,000 cases of wine, it’s hard for a distributor to pick you up, and if they do it can only be in one or two states. If you have 300 cases of wine, why would they want to spend money to build your brand? If you have a wine you sell for $50, the distributor pays $25 and you have to pay all your costs out of that.

It’s a volume thing. Gallo for example, they have the Barefoot wine label, they may make $2 on a bottle but if you’re selling half a million cases then that’s pretty good money. And if you’re in the US you’ve got so much competition nowadays from other people in other countries who can’t get rid of their wine. The other big problem you have is you make all this wine and nobody buys it, and what are you going to do with it? A lot of these folks are out there just to say they have a winery.

What’s the one piece of advice you’d share with you of 50 years ago?

I would say get to know your business. I don’t care what type of business it is. Who is your audience, who are you going to sell your product to? Who are you going to have to help you run your organization? And the only way to find that out is by working and hanging out with someone who knows that and is doing very well.

The Wagners didn’t just let me run around and pull hoses. I worked with them in the vineyards, washing barrels and cleaning tanks. I would be able to sit in with them on meetings with Chuck [Wagner] and the distributors and I spent a lot of time with the bookkeepers. I had a whole understanding. Anybody thinking about that should learn about the business first.

What’s one of your proudest moments with Vision Cellars?

One of my proudest is to have Miss Lil (his wife) to work with me. But my proudest moment was getting folks to accept Vision Cellars as a wine, and not a wine made by somebody who is Black. We need to forget about who people are. If they do a good job, they get the job. And if they’re Black and make good wine, forget the person is Black and enjoy the wine.

What do you think your legacy will be?

I hope that my legacy will be that I was willing to share information with anyone who was interested, to share information to try to help other folks understand the whole picture of the wine business. I’ve helped others freely. There’s not too many people in the wine business who haven’t called me and I spent time talking to them. André Mack he's like my kid, Theodora Lee, Daniel Bryant of Running Tiger, Danny Glover of L’Objet Noir. He’s doing a good job. And then that way they can share that information with others. So many people are doing good things in the wine business. I would say the Association of African American Vintners is still doing a lot to help other folks get a start in this business.