494: Alicia Towns Franken's Wine Life

I'll Drink to That! Wine Talk

Levi Dalton

Levi Dalton, Spain, Terroir, Napa Valley, Winemaker, Red Wine, Food, Burgundy, Personal Journals, Restaurant, Australia, Sommelier, Journalist, Portugal, Vineyard, Piemonte, Grape, Interview, Arts, Society & Culture, White Wine, Loire Valley, Champagne, Sicilia, Austria, Tuscany, Conversation, Hobbies, Wine Business, Leisure, Bordeaux, Sonoma, Feedpodcast, Wine, Germany, Author

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2023

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Alicia Towns Franken is a Co-Founder of Towns Wine Co. and the Executive Director of Wine Unify.

Alicia discusses her upbringing in Chicago and her introduction to wine in college. She then segways into describing her role as the Head Sommelier at Grill 23 & Bar in Boston, Massachusetts during the 1990s and early 2000s. Alicia talks about the bigger themes of her career, including inclusion, mentorship, building community, being hospitable, building long term relationships, and being a woman supportive of other women. She also talks about the differences between the 1990s and now in the wine world.

Alicia details how the experiences in her life affected and shaped her work, and how she organized her life as a parent raising two children. She identifies the connecting thread of her mentorship in the wine world and the parenting in her personal life. She discusses what makes a good mentor, and what support and scaffolding can achieve for mentees. She further addresses the challenges and rewards of personal and work transitions. Alicia stresses the importance of education, as well as the need to welcome more people into the wine world.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Levy Dalton and this is all drink to that where we get behind the scenes of the wine business. Oh, you know.
0:13.0	Oh, you know.
0:15.0	Oh, you know.
0:16.0	Oh,
0:17.0	And, and you know,
0:18.0	and you know, Alicia Towns Franklin is on the show today.
0:27.0	She is a co-founder of Towns Wine Company and the executive director of Wine Unify, a Wine Mentorship Program focused on diversity.
0:36.3	Hello, how are you?
0:37.4	I'm fantastic, how are you?
0:39.1	It's nice to see you.
0:40.5	So we met originally quite a few years ago when you were Somie A in Boston and I was a young waiter or Somie at that time back in the 90s.
0:50.0	But you were not born in Boston, you born in Chicago absolutely and your family were they into food where they into wine or how what was it like when you're growing up?
0:59.3	Not the typical definition of being into food, definitely not into wine. My family
1:05.7	was not big drinkers and wine was absolutely not a part of our lives. Food, yeah my family loved food. They loved to cook. My grandmother loved entertaining.
1:16.2	And so Friday night was a good time. You know, people will come over and play cards and the kids
1:20.9	we get to watch and then we had to go to bed. yeah it was good it was great to see just the community together eating together laughing so much like joy and people talk about black joy and there truly is amount of joy that comes at the end of the week.
1:36.0	You know, I grew up in a large family, although I'm an only child.
1:42.0	Anant of mine died when I was a year, so we took in her four daughters as well, and the family
1:47.4	just grew, so there are lots of people, but we bonded together to make ends meet.
1:53.0	They were 15 in my household, you know, my mother and her siblings and their children and my great-grandmother, who was born in the 1800s,
2:01.0	who I loved and who I got to hang out with and and be in the
2:06.5	kitchen while she was making biscuits or whatever she was doing and I love
	...

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