Jollof Rice, Peri Peri, and Zinfandel

On May 11, 2026, certified sommelier, debut author, and change agent in the world of wine and beverage, Cha McCoy came to UC Davis with a mission to reframe how we think about wine, food, and who gets a seat at the table.

The evening was made possible in part by Professor Kimberly D. Nettles-Barcelón of UC Davis's African American and African Studies Department, a scholar of Black women, food, and cultural resistance, who helped bring McCoy to campus and introduced her to a sold-out audience in the Sensory Theater at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science.

McCoy, one of Wine Enthusiast's 40 Under 40 and a NAACP-nominated author, came to share her new book, Wine Pairing for the People: The Communion of Wine, Food, and Culture from Africa and Beyond. It's a first-of-its-kind guide that takes the conversation around wine and food far beyond Europe and into the full, flavorful breadth of the world's culinary traditions.

The Journey Behind the Book

McCoy's path to Wine Pairing for the People is as compelling as the book itself. She holds a BS in Civil Engineering, an MBA in Finance, and an executive certificate from Universidad de Lisboa. In 2010, she found herself at a crossroads, drawn toward Italy and wine and inspired by Eat, Pray, Love. 

She went on to train with the Court of Master Sommeliers, work as a sommelier at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Portugal, lead beverage programming at the Charleston Wine + Food Festival, and serve as Cherry Bombe Magazine's first beverage director, before returning to New York to teach at her alma mater, Syracuse University.

Through it all, she built The Communion, a wine dinner series that grew into a brick-and-mortar wine and spirits shop in downtown Syracuse, rooted in the belief that gathering over wine should feel joyful and accessible to everyone, especially anyone who's ever felt like wine culture wasn't quite made for them. That spirit of inclusion is the beating heart of Wine Pairing for the People.

Pairing Wine with the World

Wine Pairing for the People is organized by continent and region, sweeping from Africa to the Caribbean to Asia to the American South, pairing wines with the cuisines and culinary traditions that deserve more representation in the wine conversation, such as jollof rice, BBQ, Dominican cuisine, peri peri, and much more. McCoy's "pair with intention" philosophy weaves together history, flavor, structure, and cultural context, making the book as useful for a weeknight dinner as it is for a sommelier's bookshelf.

The book's "Paired Up" sections do exactly what the name suggests, matching wines to dishes with the kind of specificity that actually helps in the kitchen. Some examples in the book include Zinfandel with jollof rice on page 17 and a skin-contact Arinto from Lisboa paired with peri peri roast chicken on page 37. On page 39, there's even a recipe for peri peri sauce so you can make it yourself. 

The "Sip the Culture" sections zoom out to tell the bigger story, like the one on page 108, which traces how the drinks of Chile map the country's entire history from pre-colonial chicha from the Andes and Amazon, beer brought by German immigrants, to traditional drinks like mate, pisco, and the cocktail terremoto, a mix of table wine, pineapple ice cream, and grenadine or Fernet. In the book, McCoy jokingly warns, "Its name means earthquake, because it will leave your legs shaking."

Over the course of the evening, she laid out four goals for the book. First, to decentralize Europe in our wine conversations. Next, to legitimize the regions and producers that get overlooked and decolonize our palates by broadening the flavors we reach for. And finally, to champion what she calls democratic terroir, the idea that culture and identity are every bit as valid a sense of place as any storied appellation. 

Geography, she noted, sits at the top of wine's value hierarchy. A Chardonnay from Sonoma will outprice one from Portugal in most minds, and that's as much an equity problem as a wine problem.

McCoy shared a discovery she made while writing her book. Wine maps often erase entire producing regions simply by failing to update them. Wine Pairing for the People is a book that puts those regions, those cuisines, and those stories back on the map.

A Fresh Take

McCoy wants you to think about how your taste in wine goes beyond your palate and who taught you what "good" wine is supposed to look like.

Drawing on sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's argument that taste is deeply tied to culture and social belonging, she reminded the room that our preferences don't exist in a vacuum. "Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier," she quoted, before pressing further, "Who established our taste, and our distaste?"

In wine, that question has real stakes. When did sweet wine become shorthand for unsophisticated? Who decided a Chilean Cab with steak was less worthy than a Napa pour? Why does Riesling get held up as the answer to "ethnic foods" while those cuisines go unnamed and underrepresented? 

McCoy observed that wine, like food, has long been shaped by cultural gatekeeping, quietly determining what gets considered refined and what gets dismissed. "The future of wine is not the abandonment of expertise, but the redistribution of legitimacy."

The Wines of the Evening

The evening's wine selection, curated by McCoy herself, was a statement in a glass. Pours from Violet's Paradise Wines, McBride Sisters Wine Company, Ward Four Wines, Theopolis Vineyards, J Vineyards & Winery, and Martha Stoumen Wines brought her vision to life with a lineup that showed just how rich and varied the wine world can be when we actually look beyond the usual shelves.

Leave Room for More

McCoy rounded out the evening with a call to interdisciplinary curiosity, drawing on The Migrant's Table by Dr. Krishnendu Ray, High on the Hog by Dr. Jessica B. Harris, and the idea that wine knowledge is always richer in conversation with food studies, history, and culture. 

McCoy reminded the room that wine is not the only beverage with a sense of place. Tea, coffee, beer, and rum all have a story to tell, and the conversation is more rewarding when we remember that.

She left the room with an invitation to explore, to question, and to reach for something new: "There is no single table, therefore there should be no single canon."

Wine Pairing for the People is available now. Find a list of retailers at chamccoy.com/books. 

Kaylianne Jordan is a senior studying Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis. She has a background in culinary arts and a passion for sustainable farming and enjoys exploring the connections between agriculture, winemaking, and community. Outside of college, she loves trying out new recipes, and discovering local food spots.