Phil Long is the president of the Association of African American Vintners (AAAV) and the founder of Longevity Wines, based in Livermore, California. He was born in Washington, DC, grew up in Southern California and graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a degree in architecture. “I did my degree not even knowning that wine was made in California,” he says – now noting that “they are archiving my brand in the university as the only winery brand owner who graduated from Cal Poly – so I’m going to speak to their hospitality majors. The wheel has come full circle.”

In 2002 Long and his wife Debra – who lost her battle with pancreatic cancer in 2019 – made their first Syrah in their garage and they founded Longevity Wines in 2008. Long and his son Phil Long Jr produce approximately 3,500 cases of Longevity Vintner Select wines in Livermore Valley using local grapes. Through a partnership with Bronco Wine Company that began in 2019, Longevity Classic California wines are made on a much larger scale and distributed nationally; Longevity Wines are also available in the UK through MJ Wine Cellars.

Long became president of the AAAV in 2020. “When I joined the association in 2017 there were fewer than 20 members; now there are over 200, the majority of those joining in the last two years. We have a lot of new voices and new opinions.”

What is the background to the Association of African American Vintners

AAAV founded in 2002 by Mac MacDonald [owner of Vision Cellars in Sonoma County]. He was recognised not because he was a black winemaker but because he was making mid-90 point Pinot Noir in Sonoma. He was right up there with everybody else but he realised there weren’t a whole lot of people who looked like him in the industry so whenever he met people like him they started to band together and to share resource and knowledge and improve skills. That’s how AAAV was born. I met Mac around 2012 and didn’t realise at first that he was grooming me as his replacement. But here we are now.

What’s the aim of the AAAV?

It’s morphed over the years, from trying to get resources to African American winemakers, now we’ve grown into an entity that is really trying to make a difference in the industry, and to create diversity by uplifting, assisting, creating paths for young (and every age) African Americans in many different sectors

Is raising awareness of the opportunities in wine for black people a major part of that?

Raising awareness is a key part. When I was in college I thought all wine was made over there where you are somewhere [ie in Europe] [laughs]. I had no idea. Also, there has to be awareness that there are minorities in the industry: black people need to be able to see themselves within this industry. At the moment when you look around, you don’t see much of that. And there also has to be awareness of the opportunities for those minorities.

How has diversity in the wine trade changed in the last 20 years?

I don’t believe the awareness has changed much. There has been a growth of black-owned wineries, and more black people coming into the industry; but awareness is slow to change. We see growth, but the world doesn’t necessarily see it. It’s a slow follow.

What are the barriers stopping a young black person wanting to get into the business?

There is no industry that’s easy to get into, no matter what colour you are. In wine there are the traditional barriers of not owning land, and getting financing, but the biggest barrier today is awareness. Most people don’t know what’s available, and what path you can take. So our job is to create awareness, that there is help, and that there are paths we take to make those opportunities available. It’s up to us to create that awareness: if you don’t know something exists, then how can you pursue it?

You said that when you were growing up your dad used to have a bottle of Chianti on the table - but wine generally wasn’t a thing in your youth?

It’s to do with cultural experience, and economic base. Where I grew up, wine was just not something that was around. There were no African Americans with knowledge of fine wine. All I knew was, it wasn’t made here. It wasn’t until I was well out of college that I understood more of the wine industry.

How big a problem is racism in the wine industry?

Racism is always going to be a big thing. It exists in the world and I know it exists in the wine industry to some extent. I look at it as a hurdle. We have to prepare for it, and keep moving forward.

Was there a big change in awareness after the murder of George Floyd [on 25 May 2020], and the Black Lives Matter movement?

Things changed massively. I became came president of AAAV in January 2020; then we had BLM in June and we saw an influx of support from people who would never even have wanted to have the conversatioin before. The conversation didn’t become comfortable, but it became necessary. The McBride sisters [proprietors of the largest black-owned winery in California] posted a list that went viral of 60 black-owned wine brands to support. At the winery, just after George Floyd, we saw more online orders in the first two weeks of June than we did in the entire year 2019.

Do you agree with affirmative action [having quotas to employ people from underrepresented groups]?

There’s good wine and there’s bad wine no matter who makes it. It’s a wide spectrum: you can count the larger ones with national disribution on one hand: McBride Sisters, Longevity, Mouton Noir, Brown Estate. The other end of the spectrum is most of them: there’s a handful that can distribute in a few states, then ther are those that are no more than a few thousand cases. They are not making enough to make a mark on a broader scale, and we’re trying to help them achieve a wider audience.

How much of your remit is to help existing wineries grow, and how much helping young people get into the industry?

I’m on several calls a week doing exactly that – I was on a call today with two young people wanting to pick my brain in helping get themselves established. Then a lot of members call me asking for advice. A lot of our scholarships are for diversity and for schools and younger students trying to fnd a way into the industry.

If you had to concentrate on one sector that needed more diversity, which would it be?

All of them. From owners to management to tasting room staff f to cellar to vineyard to sommeliers to restaurant managers: name one of those areas that isn’t lacking diveristy. They all need to change. We don’t focus on any one area.

But front of house in restaurants is the most diverse?

Yes, but the higher you go in the company, the less diverse it is. We have 50-55 owners in the AAAV – that’s out of over 11,000 wineries in the US. If we get to 1% we are lucky.

Does the AAAV work only in the US or do you have an outreach programme?

We started to have conversations with organisations in South Africa to see how we could help them during the alcohol ban [during the pandemic South Africa banned the sale of alcohol and tobacco]. We’re not exclusively US - we’re always looking at opportunities.

What support do you get within the US?

There are many that have stepped up: Wine Enthusiast [magazine] for example; Jean-Charles Boisset [of Boisset Collection, owners of Raymond Vineyard and Buena Vista among others] is a huge supporter of AAAV; [Napa winery] Artesa and Riedel, distributors like Total Wine and RNDC – I can pick up the phone and call them. There are dozens of major organisations that are very serious about long-term change.