Casa Wine Feature

Ava McFarlane

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of fine wine?

I think of feeling insecure at a fancy restaurant because I don’t know the difference between a ​​Cabernet Sauvignon and a Tempranillo (let alone how to say the names correctly); or walking down the wine aisle at the grocery or liquor store, ready to splurge on a nice bottle to share with friends, and feeling completely overwhelmed by the endless categories and inevitably picking something with a pretty label in my price range. 

Ava McFarlane says she wants to create a new way for people to learn about and enjoy wine without any of the snobby, exclusive culture that currently plagues the industry. 

McFarlane is the CEO and founder of Casa Wine, Minnesota’s first woman-owned eCommerce wine shop. Located in Minneapolis, McFarlane said she’s always been immersed in food and beverage culture, gradually developing a love for flavors and pairings.

Casa Wine sets out to make enjoying and learning about wine at home and beyond an accessible experience for everyone, not just to upper-class white people who might come to mind when you think of “wine people.”

“I just want to do things differently and make it a more fun, non-pretentious space for people who want to get into wine,” McFarlane said.

“There's a lot of focus on [the technical aspects of wine production], and while that's really cool information... I want to focus on eliminating the confusion around quality and taste and make it fun and inclusive.” 

Set to launch in Spring 2022, McFarlane said she came up with the idea to start Casa Wine when she was working on a different project in 2020. At the beginning of the pandemic, McFarlane and her partner created a meal-kit delivery service called Casa Kith where they distributed meals and pre-made cocktails in Minneapolis. She said during that time, she also started exploring the world of natural wine, eventually earning a Wine and Spirits Education Trust Level 2 certification.

Natural wine is a broad term describing wine that is produced organically using practices like biodynamic farming, permaculture and more. McFarlane said many different ways of producing wine fall under the umbrella of natural wine.

“[Casa Wine] was really born out of my yearning for a way to buy natural wine [or other wines] from small producers where I didn't have to feel stupid in a liquor store, or I didn't have to feel like I was a part of this kind of high-brow society.”

McFarlane said Casa Wine will focus on featuring smaller wine produce, particularly wine produced by Black people, Indigenous people and people of color.

“There's just more of a story there and there's more of a connection. You know, I don't feel much of a connection to like Barefoot Moscato,” McFarlane said with a laugh. “I want to help people create moments, and I think it can be more holistic and fulfilling to have that moment through a smaller producer where you really know their story and you're supporting someone directly.”

Casa Wine will also host wine tasting nights at a warehouse several times a month, as well as pop-up tasting in non-conventional spaces like thrift stores, boutique furniture shops and coffee shops after hours. Casa Wine’s first collaborative event is scheduled for October 25 at St. Genevieve, a French restaurant in Minneapolis. McFarlane said they are curating wine pairings for a 6-course pop-up collaboration with partners A Bird In Hand and Houndstooth.

“A huge part of why I'm pursuing Casa Wine is I have been trying to break into the local community of wine folks and have not been met with very much success in that,” McFarlane said.

“I just want to create an environment where people who otherwise wouldn't have access to this kind of culture can feel like they can turn it into their own.”

In October McFarlane and the Casa Wine Team will launch a crowdfunding campaign to kick-start their 2022 launch. Give them a follow and keep an eye out for more information!