Jermaine Stone first came into contact with wine by chance when he took a job in the warehouse of Zachysthe Westchester wine seller and auction house, to get himself through college.

An aspiring rapper from the Wakefield section of the Bronx, Mr. Stone, now 38, quickly rose to prominence in wine, forging a career as a fine wine administrator and auctioneer, first at Zachys and then at from Wally in Los Angeles.

Now, as an independent wine consultant and social media entrepreneur, he uses hip-hop as a vehicle to bring wine to cultures and communities traditionally ignored by the industry, while working with key segments of the trade to broaden and expand their consumer base. diversify. as many promised to do after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

On podcaststhrough videos and with his company, Cru Luv wineMr. Stone has shown the wine world that it still has a lot to learn.

He has discussed hip-hop with wine greats like Saskia de Rothschild, the CEO of Chateau Lafite Rothschild in Bordeaux, and Jeremy Seysses van Domain Dujac in Burgundy.

He has worked with some of the largest wine and spirit companies such as Constellation Brands, owners of popular labels such as Robert Mondavi, Kim Crawford, Ruffino and the Prisoner. Wine trade associations in Italy, Germany and Australia, as well as wine companies such as Piper-Heidsieck, the champagne producer, and Cellar Tracker, a social media and cellar management tool, are among his clients.

Mr. Stone has paired cheeseburgers with Lafite; sandwiches with chopped cheese, a New York specialty, featuring Cornas; and grilled cheese sandwiches with Burgundy.

His goal is to strip away pretense and place wine in the context of familiar and loved elements of black culture.

“It’s about all cultures being comfortable with each other,” Mr Stone said. “Wine and hip-hop are who I am. If I want to see change, I have to be the change. Change is also who I am.”

For generations, with rare exceptions, the wine industry has been run by and for white men of European descent. Over the past 50 years, motivated by clear business opportunities, it has opened up internationally, mainly in Asia, where it has grown and profited. And as a new generation matures, it has become more welcoming to women, with daughters taking over family estates and women taking on once-unattainable winemaking and executive roles.

Yet the wine industry has largely ignored black and brown communities, reinforcing the idea that wine was for white people.

In the wake of Mr. Floyd’s murder, many wine companies have made a commitment to diversity. For many, this turned out to be lip service.

Ikimi Dubose-Woodson is the CEO of the Roots Fund, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help black, Indigenous, and other people of color access the wine industry. She said that while a small group of companies have shown genuine commitment, overall she is disappointed with the follow-up.

“They’ve settled for 30-minute online training sessions because they feel like the problem has been solved,” she said in a phone interview. “They are not willing to adopt or look any other way at the company culture they have had for a million years. They are more concerned about how much money and work is needed.”

An important part of the Roots Fund initiative, Ms Dubose-Woodson said, is combining music and culture with wine to get people more engaged and familiar with wine, as Mr Stone has done.

One company that has done the job, she said, is Constellation Brands, one of the world’s largest wine and spirits retailers, who hired Mr Stone to host company-wide events with audiences of more than 1,000 people.

“We worked with him to try and build a more diverse perspective and build empathy in our teams,” said Robert Hanson, Executive Vice President of Constellation. “It’s hard to put your money where your mouth is and deliver the results the industry has committed to without committing your entire workforce.”

For Mr. Hanson and Constellation, that meant putting people of color in positions of authority and investing money in black, Hispanic and female entrepreneurs. For example, Bukola Ekundayo, a black woman, is vice president and general manager of the Prisoner Wine Companyone of Constellation’s most popular brands, and Constellation has pledged to fund two $100 million funds to support business ventures led by minorities and women.

For older generations of wine aficionados, it is unusual to see or hear Mr. Stone swap Jay-Z lyrics with Mrs. de Rothschild or Mr. Seysses. But it shows, in stark contrast to the wine industry, how hip-hop has been embraced worldwide. In the range of its audience, hip-hop could at least be an aspirational model for wine.

“The world of wine can seem very exclusive and old-fashioned,” Ms. de Rothschild wrote in an email. “In most people’s eyes, it’s still seen as a white tablecloth product that belongs in a sacred world of sit-down dinners.”

With Mr. Stone, she said, Lafite hopes to traverse his seemingly secluded world with cultures like hip-hop and street food.

For his part, Mr. Seysses van Dujac says that he has come to realize that wine cannot be separated from politics.

“French wine was boycotted under the George W. Bush years, Trump included it in his tariffs, immigration policies have a huge impact on the US wine-producing primary workforce, climate change directly affects us,” he said by email. “The fight against racism and for more equality and more opportunities is part of it. We want to help build a truly sustainable society. This extends from the vineyards to the winery to the people who work in the wine trade and our consumers.”

It’s been a long journey for Mr. Stone, whose early childhood in the Bronx was poor. His father, a Jamaican immigrant, was an ironworker who, when he lost his job, started his own welding business.

“I watched him make something of himself, so I always had that entrepreneurial spirit,” said Mr Stone. “He taught me everything.”

In 2004, while attending Monroe College in the evenings, the younger Mr. Stone began working at the Zachys warehouse during the day. He quickly stood out for his energy and hard work.

Mr. Stone soon became logistics coordinator at the wine auctions. Not only was it his first taste of wine, he said, but it was also his first real taste of white people. Part of his job was to stand next to the auctioneer to make sure all bids were recognized.

“It can feel so intimidating when you walk into that room — the richness, the air, is different,” he said. “I had no white friends, I wasn’t around other cultures. Most people will assume how I am, but I didn’t get that. It taught me that everyone is an individual. People were so loving and welcoming. No one has ever treated me as insignificant.”

Mr. Stone possesses a combination of confidence, self-awareness, and empathy that allowed him to navigate unfamiliar worlds without feeling overly discouraged.

“My perception of racism is that there are different levels,” he said. “Much of what people classify as classic racism is actually racial ignorance. If I’m in Hong Kong and you don’t hand over my business card with both hands and bow my head, it could be considered disrespectful. You have to learn that. I’m going to find a way, if you look down on me, to level the playing field.”

He went out on his own in 2016, looking for flexibility to care for his mother, who was diagnosed with cancer. In addition to consulting, he started the “Wine and hip-hop” podcast in 2018.

“The phone really started ringing after George Floyd was killed,” he recalled. “Making all cultures feel together, people understood that I already did.”

For Ms. Dubose-Woodson, the most important thing right now is direct action.

“Most importantly, I want to shout it from the mountaintops, we spend too much time strategizing,” she said. “We don’t have to plan for 10 years, we just have to start.”

The work Mr Stone is doing is a good example, she said, along with dedicated companies she mentioned, including Burgundian producers such as Dujac, Domaine des Comtes Lafon, Domain Roulot, Maison Joseph Drouhin And Domaine de Montillewhich she said were associated with master’s-level programs at historically black colleges and universities.

“They’re giving people of color a pass to all access to what’s the best wine,” she said. “These domains provide education, offer internships and visits. It has been the places in the wine that were unreachable.

Audio produced by Jack D’Isidoro.