It’s a long subway ride from Red Hook to the New York Wine Experience in Times Square, but 10-time NBA All-Star and four-time Olympic medalist Carmelo Anthony has covered a lot of distance on his journey from a childhood in Brooklyn, then in Baltimore, to a basketball career on six different NBA teams and four Olympic teams. His latest calling, wine entrepreneur, has taken him to the Southern Rhône, Bordeaux, Burgundy and California, landing him in front of this audience of avid enophiles.
During the height of his astonishing basketball career, Anthony became a devoted wine collector, with a penchant for Old World wines from classic French regions. His interest in the wine industry continued to grow, until he found himself at the head of his very own wine brand—“mostly to save money!” he joked to the crowd. “I was going to too many auctions and had to get my accountant off my back!”
While overspending on rare bottles is something many a wine collector can relate to, Anthony’s true passion for the art of winemaking and his love for the industry was immediately apparent as he discussed his experience with VII(N) The Seventh Estate Oath of Fidelity wines. He developed the Rhône Valley line of wines in partnership with VII(N) co-founder Asani Swann and Rhône winemaker Stéphane Usseglio. Currently they produce three Oath of Fidelity bottlings: a red and a white (poured at the Grand Tastings) from Châteauneuf-du-Pape and a Côtes du Rhône.
He couldn’t help but smile as he spoke about his preferred Southern Rhône appellation. “Châteauneuf is one of my favorite wines, and the Grenache grape is one of my favorite grapes. I knew that, if I could establish a really good Châteauneuf-du-Pape, then I would be able to establish myself in the industry on the right foot. We really took our time—making a CdP isn’t easy! But we finally felt like we had hit all the right points with this wine and that we were ready to share it with the world.”
Scoring 93 points is no mean feat, and the VII(N) The Seventh Estate Oath of Fidelity Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2020 certainly impressed under the bright lights of wine’s biggest stage. But for Anthony, the story behind the wine’s name is just as important as the finer points of the winemaking itself. Oath of Fidelity was chosen as an homage to one of Anthony’s heroes, François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture.
Louverture is an important figure in abolitionist history. He was a former slave-turned-army general best known for leading the Haitian Revolution against French colonial rule, which ultimately resulted in Haiti gaining independence from France. During a peace negotiation with the French army in 1802, he was captured and imprisoned in Fort du Joux, a castle fortress north of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, where he died the next year.
“As we were shaping the brand, we really thought ‘Okay, what is the story that we want to tell here?’” said Anthony. “I read a lot about all the history with Toussaint and Châteauneuf and what transpired, and we wanted to tell that history, but also dig deep behind the layers of it, really peel back those layers and tell a good story, all while you’re drinking the wine. I mean wine is meant for good conversation. I can sit here and talk to you, drink this glass of wine and talk about Toussaint all at the same time.”
Anthony explained that the wine name comes from the oath of fidelity Louverture asked all the soldiers in his Armée Indigène to swear before they faced the French forces, “an oath of loyalty to the cause of freedom,” as he put it.
However VII(N) The Seventh Estate isn’t just keeping its wins to the Rhône Valley. While Anthony and Swann have also collaborated with winemakers in Burgundy and Bordeaux, he specifically mentioned his experience working with Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa on a Cabernet Sauvignon-Cabernet Franc blend.
“We really wanted to bring a new twist to the nostalgia of Robert Mondavi, Anthony explained. “[The wine] is a proprietary blend from To Kalon so it was amazing to get to really pick the best of the best. We called it Ode to Soul because we are panning back and paying homage to the winemakers before us and the shoulders that we stand on in this industry.”
Anthony ended his seminar with a call for less stress and more joy, which was met with cheers from the crowd. “For me it’s about longevity, it’s about creating a journey, about creating opportunities to help others in the wine industry and opportunities to collaborate with others in the industry, but it’s really a fun industry if you allow it to be fun. If you let it be stressful it will be stressful, but that goes for pretty much anything in life. So just have some joy with it!”
