McBride John, Andréa

Impact on the world

Raised in New Zealand's Marlborough wine region without knowing of her American half-sister's existence, McBride John co-founded McBride Sisters Wine Company in 2005 and now serves as its CEO, overseeing a company that by 2020 was the largest Black-owned wine company in the U.S. by volume and, with Robin, became the first Black women winery owners to appear on the cover of Wine Enthusiast magazine. She co-founded the McBride Sisters SHE CAN Professional Development Fund in 2019, which has awarded more than $3 million in scholarships, grants, and technical training — including Court of Master Sommeliers scholarships and an HBCU partnership with Southern University — to women entering the wine, hospitality, and finance industries, and was named to Wine Enthusiast's “40 Under 40” list and a 2022 Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute.

Life & background

Born in Los Angeles around 1982-83 to an African American father from Camden, Alabama, and a Scottish-New Zealand mother, McBride John moved at age six to Blenheim, New Zealand, where her mother died shortly after their arrival; she was raised primarily by a foster mother and by her maternal uncle, a wine-grape farmer, working summers in his vineyards. At twelve she learned by phone from her father, Kelly McBride, that she had an older half-sister, Robin, in California; the two finally met at LaGuardia Airport in 1999, when Andréa was sixteen. While still a junior at the University of Southern California — where she earned a BA in international relations in 2007 — she and Robin launched their first wine-import business, which grew into McBride Sisters Wine Company, formally unified as one brand in 2017. She married Fabian John in 2017 and now serves as the company's CEO from its Oakland, California, headquarters.

Sources

1. McBride Sisters Wine Company; WWD; Philadelphia Sunday Sun