The Amazing 280Project's First Vintage!! (Newsletter #25)

It's here and it's amazing!

This is a wine project that I am sooo incredibly inspired by. The Two-Eighty Project is a Black-owned, family run project that started in San Francisco’s Alemeny Farm, a community space for gardening and urban farming. I first read about their story written by Nadia Mincey in 2020 for The Wine Zine and have been following their journey ever since.

The @280Project was founded by husband and wife, Chris and Jannea, who took over an abandoned vineyard at the farm in 2020, tended the first vines and produced their first bottles in their San Francisco apartment with their daughters.

Their project is based in community and serves as a place and space for Black youth, BIPOC and LQBTQIA+ folks to learn about wine, how to grow and make wine, and how to market it with a hands on approach. Their mission is to reclaim, revitalize and return spaces to the community through food and wine. Diversity and equity are at the center of their project and highlight the importance and impact work like theirs can have on the wine industry as a whole. There’s still a lot of work for the wine industry to do when it comes to diversity, but I love seeing projects like Chris and Jannea’s, disrupting systems and showing how people can come together to uplift and create sustainable communities.

After a couple years of building their project, they released their first vintage this month called L’amalgame. It’s a hybrid* rosé made from grapes grown in the Bay Area. It was such a beautifully bright and crisp rosé (maybe even a light red!?) with Pink Lemonade vibes, sour raspberry and watermelon, and a bit of white iced tea. It was poolside, summertime, block party, sharing with your friends kinda wine, but can wind down for an elegant sunset rooftop dinner moment. Stunning. You need this bottle in your summer line up.

If you haven’t read Nadia’s story on them, I highly recommend! And please be sure to check out 280Project’s website and socials to learn more, support and where to purchase their wine!

**Hybrid grapes are grapes that are cross pollinated together to produce a new grape (A common example of hybrid grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon is a hybrid of Cabernet Franc & Sauvignon Blanc). The grapes used in this vintage were not sent for testing, data analysis or sampling, which makes their wine making process more unique and adventurous.