NAIDU WINES & RAGHNI NAIDU ARE SUCCEEDING
DUE TO MERITOCRACY, NOT BECAUSE of ETHNICITY OR GENDER
By ALAN GOLDFARB
It was at least a quarter century ago, perhaps longer, that I began chronicling the pioneering women who were emerging as leaders, winemakers, and gatekeepers in the California wine industry. If I may say, I believe I was one of the first journalists to write on this topic. That is because I believed it was so very important to recognize and give voice to the demographic of women and people of color, who were woefully underrepresented. Not only in wine, but in all other endeavors of society.
All this time later, I still find myself extolling the virtues of women in wine. But in doing so, I must ask: why is it even necessary at this point in our evolution to point out that there are women in wine and women of color in wine? Isn’t it time to focus on Raghni Naidu as an example, as a person in wine? Albeit a strong, intelligent, audacious person, who just happens to be a woman as well as an Indian woman? She is all that and much more as a founder, a leader, and a beacon for her own Naidu Wines.
It is thus, in the case of Raghni Naidu that I write this. That’s because I’ve found Raghni to possess no bounds in terms of effort, vision, and energy. In only a few years she has brought her Naidu Wines into the pantheon of some of the best and most interesting wine brands to emerge in California in years.
In one recent month alone, Raghni crisscrossed the country to Chicago to have her wines served exclusively at the James Beard Foundation’s Greens dinner. To back to San Francisco to present her Best-in-Class award-winning Brut Rosé and double golds for Naidu’s 2021 Estate and Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition’s consumer tasting. Then to New York to see her wines poured once again at the James Beard Taste NY. From there, it was onto Santa Barbara where she poured her Pinot Noirs at the prestigious World of Pinot Noir event.
Raghni is indefatigable in her efforts to bring righteous attention to her wines and to her story. Almost immediately after she got started in 2020, her wines landed on the lists of two of the country’s most prestigious restaurant lists: Single Thread in Healdsburg, CA. and on the wine list at The Ritz Carlton, Laguna Beach. A feat unheard of, even for a seasoned winery with a much more prestigious track record. That was followed by some of the country’s most highly regarded wine writers, who came calling. Which is all adding up to enabling Naidu Wines to take its place in the world-wide assemblage of significant wineries.
Surely, all the accolades didn’t come to Raghni or to her Naidu Wines simply because she was an ethnic woman. No, they came to her because of her prowess as a leader in the industry, her singular vision to succeed and because she makes damned good, balanced, and honestly priced wines.