Uncorked Access, Peter Cook and Laura Unterstein

Uncorked Access experienced its first full year as an organization. Our vision has always been that of a two-pronged approach to both advocate and raise awareness within the professional wine industry, which currently has very little (if any) visibility on deafness and the Deaf community, as well as to build up a network of Deaf wine professionals and wine enthusiasts.

Overall, more time and effort was spent in successfully spreading awareness about accessibility within the wine industry, particularly in the front half of the year. We joined the Diversity in Wine Leadership Forum, took part in an accessibility panel at Tales of the Cocktail. Through these efforts and opportunities, we have been learning from other participants about how we can expand our equity work to avoid inadvertently creating harm and discriminating against others. When opportunities arose, particularly for Laura (hearing), she made a concerted effort to leverage her privilege in insisting that there be equal or more opportunity for a member of the Deaf community. We shared concrete information on our social media to educate hearing people about how they could make the wine industry more accessible, but did not end up creating as much content as we had intended due to time constraints detailed below.

The second half of the year brought us opportunities to further engage with the Deaf community. Notably, one Deaf wine professional reached out to us after struggling to secure accommodations for their wine credential class to no avail. We were successfully able to establish a meeting with the school, advocate for accommodations, and ultimately, help provide resources for the accommodations, which went smoothly for this student. We were also able to host a virtual gathering for Deaf wine professionals we connected with over the course of 2022 to establish a professional network that we aim to grow.

One of our continued challenges is the fact that both of us have full time jobs and otherwise busy schedules, so establishing time to complete tasks with the full attention they deserve is an ongoing effort. We also recognize that while Peter is Deaf himself, we are both white and carry a good deal of privilege. Because of this, we are making efforts to spread opportunities we are offered or see around, so that there is a more diverse and equitable pool of candidates.

2023 will see the year that we establish ourselves as an LLC, and with that, commit to equitable business practices. We plan on using an MOA to make sure we align with those we do business with. We will also be focusing on our goal of organizing a think tank of Deaf wine professionals to develop a lexicon of accepted, conceptually accurate signs in American Sign Language for different facets of specialized wine vocabulary. Third, we plan to build a one stop shop of resources for both Deaf folks and hearing hospitality professions seeking information related to accessibility.