What could be a more fitting second act in a place called the Vineyard than a wine-tasting business?
By
James Dale
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Stephanie Browne’s labor of love — introducing others to the joys of good wine — has brought together two very significant, but seemingly unrelated pieces of local history. First, the name of the Island: According to lore, in 1602 explorer Bartholomew Gosnold landed on our shores, found wild grapes growing here, and named this new-found “vineyard” after his daughter, Martha. (But despite a valiant effort by Chicama Vineyard, the Island soil didn’t lend itself to the business of fine grapes.) Second, some 200 years later, in the early 1800s, Martha’s Vineyard began to emerge as one of the few summer destinations that welcomed African American families. By the post-war boom of the 50s, the Island had become a favorite of Black vacationers and homeowners, from the middle class to the elite, from academics to Hollywood producers, from authors and artists to politicos.
Then, a few decades later, along came Stephanie Browne, and she helped bring both pieces of history together.
Grape-growing pun intended, let’s go to the roots of the story. One evening, Stephanie was invited out to dinner at the Top of the Hub restaurant in the Prudential Tower in Boston. “I’d had a glass of wine now and then, but never really good wine. My date ordered a bottle of merlot, which was the ‘in’ wine at the time.” Stephanie was excited, perhaps too excited. “I have a tendency to speak with my hands and after only one glass of wine (she swears), I knocked over the whole bottle of red.” But that one glass was enough to give her a taste of the difference between wine and good wine. Despite the spill, her date went on to become Stephanie’s husband, Basil Browne. And that night launched what would become her life’s avocation.
As a healthcare executive with Blue Cross of Massachusetts in Boston, Stephanie began to explore the joys of fine wine as a part-time endeavor during evenings and weekends off. It turns out, wine was the ideal respite from processing insurance claims, HR challenges, and untangling government regulations. She began introducing friends — most of whom were women, and many were African American — to the appreciation of fine wine. “I had been dabbling in wine for a long time. I first called it mostly a hobby, and then a hobby gone amuck because of the fact that, as a result, I actually almost had two careers.”
Divas Uncorked was born. “It was a group of friends who came together around wine and friendship. Our goal at that time was just to learn about wine and have a good time socializing together. We met once a month and began to teach ourselves about wine.”
In the meantime, she and her husband had begun coming to the Vineyard and bought a home in Oak Bluffs in 2001. Stephanie now took her love of wine, her “hobby gone amuck,” to the Island in summers.
At the time, while the spirits industry marketed whiskey, scotch, cognacs and other liquors to Black consumers, it had largely ignored those consumers when it came to selling wine. Stepanie says, “We started thinking, how could we teach all women, and people of color, about wine? So we started working with some of the big wineries back then to help them expose their brand to this marketplace.”
Stephanie was still working full time, “But I started to think, what do I want to do after work? I opened up a wine store in 2008 in Randolph, Massachusetts, at probably the worst time, right after a recession, to open anything.” But in her typical determined way, she did keep it going for a few years.
Then, over the next several summers, Stephanie spread her wine love to the Vineyard each summer, with wine-tasting parties and small events. “When I started doing events on the Island, we were mostly targeting women and the African American visitors and owners on-Island.”
By 2020, thanks to COVID, remote work, and approaching retirement, “the Vineyard went from our vacation home to our main home.” As people re-emerged from their homes, post-COVID, Stephanie saw it as an ideal time to pop the cork on her next wine endeavor, Sipping Sense. “Sipping Sense is really all about having people enjoy wine, entertaining, and eating healthy foods. It’s a travel company; it’s an event company; it’s an educational company — basically anything that has to do with wine.” And now as a year-round resident, Stephanie was looking to spread her wine-love to others who were here beyond the summer. “I started working with Little House restaurant in 2023 in the wintertime to do wine-pairing dinners. From January to April, Little House was looking for ways to bring people in the door.” The restaurant prepares special menus, Stephanie brings her wine expertise, and Islanders come out to be with friends and learn a little more about wine. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to meet people from other parts of the Island, new followers and new friends.”
Of course, that’s not all Stephanie is doing wine-wise. After helping introduce the major wineries to African American consumers, now she’s promoting African American wineries to as wide an audience as she can, labels like Charles Woodson, McBride Sisters, and Theopolis, all part of the Association of African American Vintners. She’s leading trips and traveling to great wine regions — Napa and Sonoma and France. “I try to be creative. During January to March, you have Black History Month and Women’s History Month so I try to stay in theme when we’re doing events.”
And she never stops learning about wine. “I’m not a sommelier, but I did train myself by taking courses at Boston University where they have a program for wine and beverages. I call myself an edutainment person — education that helps people understand history and entertainment together, which makes it fun.” She works with Chef Lori Edmonds, a freelance chef and caterer, to do pop-up dinners, often at the S & S venue in Vineyard Haven, featuring specialities of Lori and wines by Stephanie. And Stephanie has even written a book that dropped on Amazon on July 15, titled “Sipping Sense: Uncorking the Flavors of Wine, Entertaining and Healthy Cooking.”
Of course, Stephanie never stops her search for the next favorite wine. Her latest is aligote — the grape and the varietal — which she discovered on a recent trip to France. “It’s a white grape. Most white wines are made from red grapes, but this one is a white grape, from the Burgundy region — a cross between Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay — nice and crisp, wonderful for summer.”
Now, going on four decades, Stephanie Browne has spread her wine love from Boston to Martha’s Vineyard, from women to men, from Black to white, from summer visitors to year-rounders. Why has her second act “ripened” here on this Island? Why here? Why now? More than anything, she feels that wine is about community, and so is Martha’s Vineyard. “People on-Island are focused on supporting other people on-Island. People want to see other people succeed in whatever it is they’re doing, whether you live in Chilmark or you live in Oak Bluffs, it’s all about community.”
Cheers, Stephanie.
