One Cincinnati entrepreneur is making downtown a little more lush.
Natasha Williams, founder of the Blk Wine Fest and Lush Life Brands, is using her expertise as the only Black and woman-owned licensed wine distributor in Ohio to create her own tasting room. This Friday, at 917 Vine Street directly across the street from Kroger’s corporate headquarters, the Lush Life Tasting Room will officially open for business.
“I started Lush Life to make wine approachable and fun, particularly for people of color, but really for anybody,” Williams said. “My goal is to create spaces where everybody feels included and welcomed … it’s not like a Cooper’s Hawk or a wine bar. It is truly an experience. You book a tasting, you come in, we run through the tasting menu, and you get to experience it in this really relaxed but lushy environment.”
Williams started her career as a bartender, then transitioned to a 23-year-long career in human resources, noting that she enjoyed working in HR because it “reminded me a lot of being behind the bar, because I get to sit and talk to people and ask questions and get to know them more and more.” But she knew she wanted something bigger, and so she broke into the wine industry in 2018 when she founded Lush Life.
Over the past few years, Williams has founded several successful organizations and festivals around the city, like Blk Wine Fest — which celebrates Black-owned wine brands and producers — and the Cincy Rosé Wine Festival, both of which consistently sell out year after year. With this new space, she looks to make the experience she provides at her festivals available year-round.
“As Lush Life continues to grow, I wanted to find a new way to highlight the incredible variety of wines in our portfolio,” Williams said. “I was busting at the seams at my old office space. But then I saw this space, and it … was perfect, it just made sense. I thought about how I could utilize it.”
Inside the tasting room, guests can book by-appointment-only, 75-minute-long sessions with the Lush Life team from Thursdays to Sundays. Guests can choose from sweet, white, red, or mixed tasting experiences, each led by a wine professional and highlighting brands like Ibest, Bedvyne, Mom Juice, Don Luchi and more.
Tastings will accommodate 20 to 24 guests and feature four to five wines, with charcuterie available for purchase. The mixed tasting session is $45; all others are $35. In the future, Williams plans to expand their selection of tastings even further.
“We’ll just be curating different experiences depending on the season. For example, I’m a football girly, so hey, maybe we do like a pop-up pre-tailgate tasting with mimosas and continental bites before you head down to the stadium,” she said.
Williams is leasing the space from the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. (3CDC), as part of their recent developments at and around Court Street Plaza.
“The 3CDC team has always enjoyed working with Natasha on events like the Cincy Rosé Wine Festival, so when we learned that she was looking to open a tasting room, we were eager to help her find the ideal space for bringing her vision to life,” said 3CDC’s EVP of Civic & Commercial Space Activation, Christy Samad, in a statement. “We support her mission to highlight Black-owned and diverse wine brands and are excited about the opportunities this will create within the community.”
With the opening of the tasting room, Williams hopes to foster a sense of community around wine.
“I think the biggest thing is I want people to feel good, but I also want them to feel inspired. I know that sounds cheesy. I want people to walk away and say, like, ‘man, it was just so nice. I have to go back there.’ Or, ‘I have a memory that I’ve created in my brain, and now I want to go back and make more memories,'” she said. “I want them to meet a new group of people, make new friends. I really want that for this space, and it may sound crazy, but I feel like it can happen.”
For more information or to reserve a booking, visit the Lush Life Brands website.
