We were lucky to catch up with Jill Osur recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jill, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

It was June 3, 2020, I was working from home due to Covid as many of us were. It was a time when the news was consumed with the civil unrest in this country following the murders of Brianna Taylor, Amaud Arbery and George Floyd. It was a beautiful morning at the vineyard, and I started my day, as every day, with a warm cup of Nespresso. It was a great morning until I opened my computer to check my email and at the top of my inbox was a totally unexpected and threatening email. It was from the largest investor in the winery group that I was a President of and a major owner. While the email was sent to the four executive team members (three guys and myself), it was only addressed to me. It said, “Dear Jill, how dare you post a Black Lives Matter post. This political post is going to damage me personally and professionally, and if you don’t take it down, I will ask for your resignation. If that doesn’t work, I’m going to hire attorneys to sue our own company. Our company had a diversity of investors, employees and customers, so I knew it was right that we put up the post and I was proud to lead our efforts on this important issue. The week following the post was a challenging one, as while we had wine bloggers praise our efforts for being out front and taking a leadership position, we had customers quit our wine clubs because of the post and our largest investor continued to push for the post to be removed, for me to resign, and for our board to meet. Our board did meet and determined that we would leave the post up, but also voted that moving forward, we would not use our voice or our platform to speak out on social issues. I was the only dissenting vote.

This email got me asking myself, what was I doing as a leader in the wine industry to be part of the solutions I wanted to see? It’s my nature when things are tough to find solutions and to get into action. I was a collegiate athlete at the University of California at Berkeley where I was a catcher on the softball team (Go Bears!), so using my voice was instrumental to my success. I grew up in a Jewish family and taught Tikkun Olam, which is to repair the world and leave it better than you found it. Before you repair the world, you have to repair your community, and before your community, your family. I’ve been on the front line of many racial and social justice fights, so using my voice isn’t new to me, but boy had I lost it. I realized how tamed I had become in an industry steeped in tradition and dominated by men. Anyone who knows me would say, Jill tamed? No way. I began looking at my own industry to find that there are only 10% female winemakers, 0.1% black winemakers, men and women, that female sommeliers still make 70 cents on the dollar to their male counterparts, and yes, there are women working in tasting rooms, but when you look at the industry as a whole, there are very few women in leadership positions and even fewer women of color. Yet, almost 70% of wine is purchased by women and the industry doesn’t reflect its largest customer.

I founded Teneral Cellars to harness the power of business for good and to use wine as a conduit for change. We are women owned and run, sustainably farm and produce award-winning wines and donate 10% of profits back to organizations that empower women and fight for gender and racial justice.

Women are 52% of the population and we need to support each other with our dollars and our actions to truly create the change we want to see in the world.

Jill, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Teneral Cellars is a women-owned and run wine company on a mission to reshape the wine industry to reflect its largest customer – women. I got into the wine industry because I love how wine connects people. When women gather wine flows, and the most meaningful conversations I’ve had there has been wine on the table. We want people to open a bottle and open a conversation. We offer conversation starters that take people from talking to action. Everything we do is to create a more equitable world for all women. I’m proud that all of our vendors and suppliers are women and minority owned businesses. I’m proud that we showcase different female artists on our labels and that we are tackling key social and racial issues in the country using wine as a conduit for change.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The lesson I had to unlearn is that the age old systems in place for doing business are outdated and don’t support a world more connected and inclusive. Using just your head for decisions leaves out two legitimate brains, your heart and your gut. When you don’t check in with all three brains you are out of alignment and integrity and can’t operate at your best – in your brilliance. Showing up in full alignment and integrity allows me to be my highest most authentic self. We use this philosophy at Teneral Cellars and questions everything, as most things in the wine industry come from a place steeped in tradition and dominated by men.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The same as my first answer.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.teneralcellars.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teneralcellars/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teneralcellars
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillosur/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/teneral-cellars
• Twitter: Not using Twitter anymore
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7p2WMbMWHRyBKYrITIxV5g

Image Credits
Kristen Blush on the Ruthless Collection photo