Former Miss USA Creates Low-Alcoholic, Herbal Wine Brand, Becomes One Of Few Black Winemakers In The Country

Nana Meriwether has lived many lives. 

At just 35, she’s been Miss USA. She’s competed in professional volleyball tournaments, even training for the Olympics. Meriwether worked at a renowned media company. She did postgraduate work in pre-medical sciences. And she works at ConsenSys, a software and blockchain accelerator created by the co-founder of Ethereum, the second biggest digital currency behind Bitcoin. 

Now, Meriwether can add something else to her resume: founder of Cale, a wellness company focused on alcohol alternatives, creating herbal wines. 

Meriwether’s journey to business owner and winemaker began in 2017 after an annual physical where the doctor told her that she was on the verge of being pre-diabetic. Alarmed, the former beauty queen began asking questions about her health and happiness; she ended up creating a blog where she could journal about her journey. She dove into topics like yoga and meditation. She researched and wrote about why sugar is dangerous and how people are supposed to eat.

By the end of 2018, she took a trip to Costa Rica, where she stayed on a permaculture farm called Punta Mona. She was here for ten days and learned about the field of herbalism, an ancient study about how plants, botanicals, and herbs heal.

She was hooked. 

Meriwether came back to New York City, where she was living at the time, and started an apprenticeship with an herbalist. 

“Simultaneously, I wasn’t drinking that much anymore because I was looking to improve my health. And there weren’t any adult options at the time to fill the space at the dinner table. So I would end up drinking soda water with lime, or I would fold and have a few glasses of wine and feel terrible in the morning,” Meriwether said. 

“I realized there was an opportunity here to create an adult beverage that was lower in alcohol that would still be complementary to my wellness lifestyle.”

“And that is Cale.”

Cale, a nod to the vegetable kale, grew from mere thought to reality in a little over a year. At first, Meriwether was testing and playing with herbs out of her small New York City kitchen. When that became too claustrophobic, she began using her mother’s kitchen in Maryland. 

All this while Meriwether worked full-time at the software company, self-funding her operation by using half of every paycheck to pay for her new business. She was also applying for grants and assistance. In January of 2020, she was approached by a large alcohol and spirit company interested in helping fund her venture. 

Then, Covid-19 hit. 

“They cut my funding. It was a really, really dark time,” Meriwether said. “There are not that many African American women winemakers, period. And when I lost this funding, I could have easily stopped building, but I kept going.”

Meriwether continued to self-fund her business. She even sold her New York City apartment, moved to California, and began living with friends and family to save money while getting her company off the ground. 

In the summer of 2020, she received a few grants to help, and she finally developed her first product: Hibiscus Pinot Noir. The wine Meriwether conceives are infused with wine grape varietals, organic herbs, botanicals, and adaptogens. 

“I thought it was interesting that you can infuse and ferment herbs and botanicals. I started by taking a herbal fermentation course, and I uniquely brought in traditions of winemaking,” Meriwether explained.  “Traditionally, herbal wine is just the fermentation of the herbs and the botanical; I introduced grape wine varietals.”

“All my wines are going to be some combination of a grape and an herb paired together.”

They are also low alcohol, with only a 4.5 ABV.

Meriwether found a partner in Napa, California to help make the wine, something she said was difficult to do. 

“I’ll tell you, it was not easy to convince traditional winemakers, especially in Napa and California, to try something new and innovative,” Meriwether said. “It really is breaking open the wine industry and bringing innovation.”

Meriwether is also breaking barriers as a woman of color in a field dominated by white men. 

81% of the wine produced in the U.S. is made in California, but only 14% of the state’s wineries are led by a female winemaker. The number is much lower when it comes to Black women winemakers.

“I am honored that I have found this path. Winemaking to me is not only an art, it’s not only a fun beverage, but it’s also science. I mean, it’s chemistry. It’s biology, organic chemistry,” Meriwether said. 

“A lot of what I learned in postgraduate science classes I’m implementing into my daily work as a winemaker.”

Meriwether says her first wine, the Hibiscus Pinot Noir, is light yet sophisticated in taste, dry, not sweet, and innate with notes of wildflowers and dark cherries. It can be purchased on her website. She is currently in product development for a summer wine, possibly a Rose. 

“I’m hoping that Cale becomes a staple for people who like to be social and go to dinner, but that take their work-life seriously and want to stay productive,” she said.

“I’m hoping to introduce women of color to science and show one application of that is winemaking. I want to show that there are different routes; you don’t have to sit in the lab or be on a computer; you can make products like wine and apply science to that.”