Shifting The Lens Enters Third Year With Exciting New Chef Collaborations

Shifting the Lens is an innovative culinary series from J Vineyards & Winery that gives space and a platform to voices, cultures and cuisines that have rarely been featured in winery environments. Now entering its third year, Shifting the Lens addresses the need for the wine industry to push palates and perspectives beyond the traditional Euro-centric views on wine and food pairing.

Believing there is room for all, the winery's goal is first to bring awareness to and have meaningful, authentic conversations about which cultures and cuisines are traditionally represented in wine. This allows not only J Vineyards & Winery but all winerries watching find paths to collectively push boundaries and expand beyond outdated ideas to ensure diverse flavors are showcased in the food and wine world.

In 2024 Shifting the Lens is highlighting Chef Rashida Holmes and Chef Damarr Brown. Chef Rashida is Chef/Owner of Bridgetown Roti in Los Angeles, a James Beard Awards 2024 Semi-Finalist for Outstanding Chef and 2023 Finalist for Emerging Chef, with high hopes of her residency that “everyone has a really good time and that we all have a Caribbean party together,” she says. Chef Damarr is Chef de Cuisine of Virtue Restaurant in Chicago, and in 2023, won the James Beard Award for Emerging Chef. These culinary minds are going to bring their incredible experience and expertise to the fold in August and October respectively, to up the game yet again in Shifting the Lens' third year.

Chef Rashida Holmes on choose to do Shifting the Lens, and the importance of the program:

"I have been saying to anyone and everyone that I feel like the 2020s have been and are going to be the decade of the Diasporic cuisines. There are so many amazing black chefs here in the US, Canada, and the UK with tons of experience, looking for inspiration from their Caribbean and West African roots and evolving the way in which we treat, serve, and tell our food story. I am happy to count myself among these chefs, and the Shifting the Lens program is an extension of that mission. What J Vineyards is doing to spotlight Chefs that don’t often enough have voices in theses spaces is commendable.

I am really excited to jump back into a fine dining service, incorporating everything I have learned about Caribbean cuisine over the last three years. I think Sonoma can benefit from an expansion of what fine dining looks like, smells like, taste like, and the different ways wine can complement the experience. I want Shifting the Lens guests to feel like everything they tried from my menu was unlike anything they have had before, but also reminds them of home, of family, of grandma in the kitchen, if they were lucky enough to have one. I want guests to feel the food, and the love that went into it, in their souls. I want to inspire guests to be adventurous eaters and seekers, bringing J wines to their local Jamaican restaurant with rice and peas and oxtail piled in a Styrofoam plate. I hope everyone has a really good time, that and we all have a Carib party together ! " - Chef Rashida Holmes

Click here to reserve Chef Rashida Holmes' Shifting The Lens Aug 29-Sept 1

Click here to reserve Chef Damarr Brown's Shifting The Lens Oct 17-20