Ingrid Best On Investing On Herself, Jumping Into The Wine Business, + iBest Wines

All Black History Month, we’ve been highlighting Black & Brown businesses and business owners making history today!

Ingrid Best is making her mark in the wine business in a space where black-owned wineries only make up less than 1% of all U.S. wineries. Before that she was Executive Vice President at Combs Enterprises’ Spirits Division.

Launching in October, iBest Wines can be found at your favorite local liquor store in New York, New Jersey, Florida, California, and in Georgia starting in March.

#EbrointheMorning #HOT97 #iBestWines

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Ladies and gentlemen he BR in the morning lur Styles Rosenberg uh they’re on assignment right now but we continue to cover some things for Black History Month and this young lady right here is making history I best wines my friend ingred best is with us ingred good

Morning how are you good morning I’m good I’m good it’s good to be here you know we family so I got we we’re gonna get into our history as a part of this whole but I I definitely wanted to uh get right to your new wine brand and

This whole journey and how you got to this this moment because this is history making yes it is it is and it feels good to be here it feels good to make history I launched I best wines October 10th of 23 so we’re just a little over a 100

Days old it’s my namesake brand after being in the wine and spirits business for over 20 years I decided to bit on myself I took a trip to South Africa I fell in love and I best wines is really my love story with South Africa wow um

The wine is from the stellin BOS region you know I blended both of the Blends uh with an incredible wine maker and it really is a dream come true like I I honestly can tell you I’m living the dream and um the brand is beautiful so so now walk us through

First first and foremost most how many black women are even in the wine space are are and and are do you guys communicate with one another what is that yes so you know less than 1% of the wine industry is made up of black Founders black Brands so there’s little to no

Representation however the people that have broken into the industry and there are a number of them powerhouses are doing tremendous work despite the odds right um many of us are in in contact I can tell you as I was building the brand it was important for me to start telling

People like listen I’m moving from being you know on the marketing side on the supplier side for the for the last 20 years into being a Founder um and everyone has been hugely receptive I mean folks know me in this business right so it’s not new news that I would

Be attached to something right I think new news is that is mine um but I’ve gotten huge support from from people just saying how can we help you is anything that we can do as Founders because the founder role is way different than the executive role it’s

All on you you know so um you you are in the wine and spirits business or excuse me mostly in the spirits business I think you were working with Hennessy am I saying that right uh so I worked at di I started at diio as the Ambassador

Launching a brand I then went on to lvmh on the Moet Hennessy portfolio I was on Hennessey for years badier I then went to bardi I ran the joint venture for uh Rock Nation and bardi on duay which is really how I landed in South Africa um I

Launched us say in South Africa Ghana and Nigeria and that’s where like I was like oh wait there’s a whole wine region here that I didn’t know about right um I then went on to run the joint venture for comes and diio and then I decided it

Was time for me to bet on myself the the idea of betting on yourself um you know a lot of entreprene a lot of people want to be entrepreneurs a lot of people have entrepreneurial spirit and I and I applaud that but you often hear that it’s not for everyone um anybody

Watching us have this conversation right now what are kind of those first things you need to make sure are uh calibrated correctly before you quote unquote bet on yourself what were some of the first things you did yeah I I first want to start with telling you what a Founder a

Power Power House founder told me one day Fawn Weaver she said Founders have a different heartbeat we just have a different heartbeat and so what I would tell you is that you have to have the heart and the courage before anything you have to be courageous to step out

And say I’m gonna go ahead and put everything that I have into something that I believe um and then the last thing I would say is a lot of times sometimes Founders think they could do it all themselves and though we are doing a good majority of work um you

Need teams and so I’ll tell you I’ve been blessed with five other black women who have built this thing alongside me and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them um so you got the heart uh the the management skills and I’m sure there’s some Financial kind of

Comprehension skills that have to go into this as well understanding how to manage the money not just the idea absolutely and so when I talked about that business piece you know a lot of people don’t realize those 20-some years that I spent working for those big suppliers I mastered you know building a

P&l uh managing all the operations what your cogs look like and a lot of folks just think you know it’s figuring out something cool to launch but you really do have to have the business chops by way of understanding the finance piece of it and the modeling piece so one of

The women on my team you know comes with a tremendous wealth of experience and building models for business from a financial standpoint listen we’re building these business businesses to make money we should be anyway right and so you have you yourself and then the folks on your team need to come with

That level of experience and I think that’s the hard part I think oftentimes you know dreams don’t necessarily always meet experience and that for me would be one of the critical advices that I would give any Founders like you got to go out and you got to go master that thing um

For you to really be successful um I I read an article recently and it was about black business owners and the uh missed opportunities uh for black business owners in selling their business because there’s this this feeling this obligation where when there’s a successful black business you don’t want

To sell it because of the representation aspect where you miss the you know CU businesses in business often it the idea is build it to sell it right and that’s what business is um is that your journey is that you know is that your experience where you become so attached to a

Brand um that you’ve built that when it when it does blow up and it does become time to take on new partners or maybe even sell the brand there’s concern because you are representing you know black women and black people in a space where there’s not many of us you know I

I think another critical point to understanding the business that you’re building is understanding your goal and so my goal for instance is is to have I best wines acquired in a historical acquisition in five years right and so I’ve built the business very much so

Minded of that there is I think a bit of a stigma um especially in the black and brown Community around acquisition around selling around what does that mean for legacy and for me you know accessing a level of wealth that allows me to continue to put back into my

Communities continue to put back into building businesses mentoring people is critical right so not I’m not shying away from acquisition you know I know the business that I’ve been in for the last 20 years I know the money that we could stand to make in an acquisition

And I think we need to get more comfortable in learning about what that means you know why you would build a business create a valuation and then exit if that’s what you choose to do there’s nothing wrong with that right right um ingr best so part of the cheat

Code here now we’ll go into our history ing’s been a hustler since we was 15 years old and uh you know from the Bay Area and ingred start when did how old were you when you and Crystal started y’all first business I was 19 or 20 I was like 1920

1920 and what was that first business that you started it was keeper real promotions we had a street team company that’s right and we we originally worked with sway on his street street team promotions company and then we got hot and we were like we could do this sway

Was like go ahead do y’ thing and and she’s talking about Sway Sway in the Morning sway on the radio sway you know like yes goes back to that goes back to that and it was during the days where there were lots of labels incredible an incredible time in music there were a

Lot of us running those promotion divisions like Rene mlan Barnett Reed you know Shanty do all the Legends in in the music space and so young people like us had an opportunity to get in get in those accounts work those records at Radio you know work the records at the

Record store because that at that time there were record stores right uh and so it was an incredible time and I tell people all the time I pull a lot from my experience as a street promoter you know when you have to just figure it out and it’s about your relationships and it’s

About connecting with people and it’s about working things that you’re a passionate I was passionate about all those records you know we lived we Liv time right so we was in the streets yo you know y’all think y’all was outside we was outside every night every Club every

Party from LA to to the bay to Sacramento to Seattle we was all up and down that run absolutely and you know what we got a lot of stamina and so a lot of young marketers nowadays like you just going so hard and in my mind I’m

Thinking you have no idea what going hard looks like because those Street promotion days you know you were up doing promo runs at the radio stations early you were going to the record stores in the middle of the day and then you were out at night promoting the

Records in the clubs so you know I got my chops um I would that this is 1990 91 9992 it was for me it was around 94 honestly born in 93 you know my baby boy who is now a grown man yo your son is what he’s he’s 30 almost he’s gonna be

30 he’s gonna be 30 great so he’s my he’s like my marker for those those times right so that was 30 years ago that we were grinding and building and we’re still here doing it as impactful as we were then and again I pulled so much from that time

Like in the pandemic when everybody was trying to figure out like how to Market I was like I got this yeah you know our boy Renee mlan he’s doing very well for himself proud of him and lolette yeah you know they inspire me so much and again those are relationships from back

And those street team days I mean many of us are still connected you know I I regularly reach out to Shanti do I’m proud of her the she’s doing in the mental health her podcast is doing very well yeah and then of course you I mean

We we all came up together yeah um and it just a really special time and and I would like to say I watch you all y’all are still applying a lot of that same game oh yeah to what we’re doing now so now I want getting into the wine and

Spirit space now so uh I best wines is available everywhere right now we launched again in October we are available in New York New Jersy Florida California and we’re launching in Georgia the beginning of March which is we’re super excited about we secure one of the largest distributors in

Georgia which is not an easy feat for a new brand um and then online we’re for the most part available everywhere so in this business you have to build your distribution footprint um that takes a lot of work you also don’t want to go too wide too fast so we feel like where

We are now is is good and we’ll continue to build from there um is there something that you know people who are watching this convo hearing this convo uh I obviously go online and purchase it but you know in supporting you in this brand what can we all do to Rally around

You yeah so I think the first thing uh would would be to support us by buying the brand right ibest wines.com you can find the wine and order it there you can also see the stores and the restaurants that we’re in on our website I would say

Going into places and asking for it requesting requesting it right letting people know that that you want to see it and their establishments and then I would say um I would say we really want to help the South African wine region have a presence here in the US right like it

Was very deliberate that I launched a brand from South Africa it’s it’s sorely underrepresented and I think there are regions like you know Napa and France and Italy that you know have their shine and especially you know culture is is very like immersed in those regions but

We need to get immersed in the South African wine region there’s incredible wine coming from South Africa and um ibas wines is just one of many right um and and for me again it’s a love story with the region that I’m hoping people celebrate so I would say embrace the

South Afric a South Africa wine region the wine that’s coming coming from their IUS wines now these uh you mentioned earlier in the combo that these wines are mixed uh Blended what what are the Blends so the white blend is charday shinen Blanc savan Blanc and the red

Blend is Cabernet petite SAR shiras and mabac I was very deliberate in in those Blends working with the wine maker I really wanted to show people the breath of wine coming out of South Africa I think a lot of people don’t know they assume page and and shin Blanc which are

Great flid but there’s incredible wine coming out of South Africa so very deliberate with the Blends it’s my way of saying hey discover this at the you know at all at the same time the Blends are incredible they’re beautiful they’re approachable you can drink them you know

With a meal you can drink them on their own and um the package package is sexy right everyone who’s seen the brand is like this is incredible so it’s my way of bringing I think some art to the wine industry there it is I best wines uh

This is family right here ingred best is her name she is very very very very amazing she’s a a loving uh amazing friend you’ve always been super supportive of me since the 90s uh and I’m proud of you I’m happy and I’m happy I’m in a place to support you in this

Endeavor too man this is really dope you know I love you I’m proud of you we got to keep pushing and um and yeah we here our best wines so so now here go another piece for the audience too ingred family is Devin Haney yeah which is even that’s crazy

Too yeah yeah that’s my you introduced me to him yeah I did and you embraced us when we first started doing radio I was like listen we want want people to know about him he’s an incredible listen he’s incred incredible athlete right he’s an incred he’s he’s one of those um like

Prodigies he’s a oneof one but he’s also a great guy person he’s a great person he’s a great person and and I and it’s important for me for people to know that because I think a lot of times people think athletes boxing there’s a stigma

But Devin is the best of the best and it’s been a blessing to to witness him from the day he was born to now this incredible brand businessman and Champion world champion and there’s no denying that and he’s just getting started you know he’s really if you

Think about it he’s just getting started you 24 yo 24 crazy he’s been around the world to box he never says no to a fight you know and he’s got his own promotions company he’s had since day one he’s a businessman and I’m proud of him I’m

Super super proud of him and I ride with him and and for me I just want people to really understand that it’s not just that he’s an athlete but this young guy is very clear about what he wants his Destiny to be um and he’s done it his

Way he’s done it his way and he’s done the work and he’s done the work and he’s a Founder right so speaking of Founders he’s a Founder he’s a founder of Devin Haney promotions alongside his father William Haney and I’m just proud of them I’m really proud of them ingred best I

Best wines uh thank you for your time look her up um you are making black history right now uh we are so proud of you uh shout out to Oakland they are proud of you uh in the Bay Area all the way around yes thank you I appreciate it

Thank you for having me here and to all the founders all the dreamers keep going you know there’s a space for you take up space and I hope my story um acts as just an inspiration to anyone who’s thinking about betting on themselves this is a beautiful place to

Be is this are you um are you in a place as a company where like you know the ladies do these uh what do they call painting sips is that so is it is your brand that’s is that like your Zone where somebody’s like listen we do a weekly

Painting sip or we have a mother you know the especially like postpartum moms you know the wine drinking and getting together the postpartum mom thing is definitely a thing too yeah so you know what I’m glad you bring that up listen for me art is wine and we want to be

Adjacent to All Things art I’m an art collector I’m an art lover you know we just had our first experience of pouring wine in a museum at the Brooklyn Museum Brooklyn Museum Swiss and Alicia yeah that exhibit was just it was incredible everybody needs to check it out but yeah

Whether it’s a siping paint whether it’s you’re just flipping through art books whether you’re online or on social researching new artist you know one of my big Inspirations for I best wines was Art I mean huge inspiration because there is just this kinship between art

And wine and so yeah a sip and paint with I best wines would be incredible we need to set that up I I don’t know if I’m the proper promoter for set event but you know um maybe I could support cuz you know I ain’t got I I’mma be

Outside playing dominoes or standing on the Block smoking a blunt y’all could be in there sipping and painting and painting yes yes yes yes yes well look ingred I love you so much thank you for joining us today thank you so much I appreciate you I’ll see you soon and

Everybody is iest wines.com thank you for the love and advance