Maryland wine aficionados will get a taste of a new vintage next month from an African-born vintner. Ifeoma Clyopatra Onyia is opening Clyopatra Winery and Vineyard in Laurel, Maryland, next month, and according to the winery’s website, she will be the first African winery owner in the U.S.
Onyia told WTOP that her dream is coming true as she sat in front of her very own vineyard on Brooklyn Bridge Road.
“Being the first person doing a lot of things, you get a lot of pushback. You get a lot of, ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing? Do you think you can succeed?'” Onyia said. “I had somebody asked me a question saying, ‘So who are you going to sell your wine to?’ I looked at him and I said the same people you sell your wine to.”
She grew up in Udi, Nigeria, with seven siblings and eventually went to school in England before settling in Maryland, where she began a nursing home care company. But wine was always on her mind.
“I used to go to Italy and we used to travel to France all the time, and just the love for making wines,” Onyia said. “And hence the birth of Clyopatra Winery and Vineyard.”
She bounced between the health care industry and world of fashion before personal tragedy pushed her finally go after her dreams of reds, whites and rosés. Onyia lost three brothers within a few years, including one who wanted to pursue the vineyard dream with her.
“I was going to maintain that dream; I was going to do what we had set out to do,” she said.
In May after consulting with scientists and growing experts, Onyia planted her first grape vines in a field in her front yard. Since then, she has loved fostering the budding plants and playing in the dirt.
“Roll your sleeves up, and getting in the dirt is really good,” Onyia exclaimed. “The fulfillment, the joy you get at the completion and looking at it. That’s the most fulfilling thing that you can see.”
Growing up in Nigeria, she said the culture for being successful was steered toward men rather than women.
“So you learn how to override those obstacles and be able to work hard,” Onyia said. “I was lucky to have grown up in a family where my dad said, ‘What your brothers can do, you can do it, too.'”
The grapes she planted this spring aren’t mature yet and will have to wait several years before they can produce wine. But that is not stopping Onyia. She has outsourced grapes for the first few years and will be opening a temporary wine tasting room next month.
Wine connoisseurs will be able to sample chambourcin, cabernet sauvignon, chardonel and SK77, a Russian varietal that grows well in Maryland.
Onyia plans to pair it with traditional African foods at her tasting room, which will initially be on 24th Street in Laurel.
One delectable dish, Agege bread.
“Put some butter on it. Have a glass of wine, let’s say like a cab sauv, and you’re eating that — is really good,” Onyia said.
She also wants to pair the wines with traditional chicken and goat curry, as well as Nigerian jollof rice.
A temporary tasting room is soft opening on Oct. 1, which is Nigeria’s Independence Day. The Grand opening is Oct. 14. She plans to open a permanent tasting room at the vineyard in the future.
