Cultivating change
As a teenager, Justin Michelle Ward Trabue had a moment of revelation when a Black sommelier came to her house. “It was my first time seeing somebody in the industry who looked like me. He told me, ‘Wine can take you anywhere’.”
Those words lingered in Justin’s mind, and were instrumental in her decision, when she left high school, to move away from her hometown of Washington DC and study viticulture at Cal Poly, on the West Coast. Upon graduation, in 2017, she was the only Black woman in her wine programme. And today, as the founder and owner of Ward Four Wines, she’s still a rarity. “Out of all the wines in the Americas and throughout the globe, only 1% of them are Black-owned and less than a percent of us are women,” she says.
Justin’s pioneering path began when, as part of her degree, she spent a summer on an organic apple orchard and pumpkin patch and discovered a love of the land. “It was myself and another agricultural intern, plus two forestry interns, a cattle intern and a nutritionist. We all had our specific niches, but we all learned from each other – from the forestry majors, we learned how to saw down trees and make sure that fire-hazardous areas were as safe as possible. That was really cool.”
Now based in Napa, Justin marks her tenth year of winemaking in 2026. She has taken great care to ensure Ward Four Wines buys organic grapes, sourced from family-owned businesses that pay their workers properly. Because she is a small producer, she has a hand in every stage of the process and relishes the fact that the working pattern of her year is in close harmony with the seasons, from sampling the grapes in summer to bottling in December. “In the cellar, I use ancestral methods; I’m a low-intervention winemaker, so I go to the vineyards before harvest starts and I basically create a small starter, like you would with sourdough. I haul my own fruit. It’s going back to the land, which is lovely.”
Her attention to detail is paying dividends, attracting a loyal customer base who support her brand. She recently launched a wine club, the Spell Craft Society, a six-bottle biannual offering that promotes a sense of community, but also builds a reliable income stream for the business. “I’ve got club members that I’ve had at this point for three years. I’m making the same wines, but every vintage is different. So they’re really getting to see how I change and evolve as a wine maker.” She also gets the word out by networking and speaking at events not just in California, but in Seattle and on the East Coast.
Out of all the wines in the Americas and throughout the globe, only 1% of them are Black-owned and less than a percent of us are women
Justin Michelle Ward Trabue, Winemaker and Founder, Ward Four Wines
To date, Justin has done about 16 vintages all over the world. For five years she worked with Lane Tanner, the first woman winemaker in Santa Barbara County, who encouraged her to work abroad; a six-month stint in New Zealand followed, before a move to the Napa Valley in 2021, to make Cabernet Sauvignon. During that year, Justin received some crucial funding. “I got $15,000 from an organisation called Courier Fresh Fund, which is UK based, and an additional $10,000 from two other organisations, one specific to women in wine and the other one specific to BIPOC people in wine. That enabled me to do three tonnes and five varieties, about 150 cases.” Her output has risen steadily ever since; Ward Four Wines produced about 350 cases in 2025.
The focus is on varieties which people know about, but which don’t always get discussed, like Muscat, Viognier and Barbera. “I make wine I want to drink, so that means cooler, slower, longer fermentations. I impart oak, but not too much oak.” Her website is lively and accessible, with tasting notes that welcome you in with cheeky narratives such as ‘this is your pizza night, bolognese loving Barbera’; ‘perfect for curling up with loved ones’; or ‘doesn’t take itself too seriously’.
She tries to make sure the company treads lightly, using environmentally friendly methods and materials wherever possible. “I'm choosing the wine bottles; I'm choosing a specific type of label and a specific type of packaging. I’m trying not to use plastic.” She laughs. “It’s cool because, since I’m in charge, I get to make all of those decisions.”
As well as producing the very best wines she can, Justin is also dedicated to making the industry more accessible to people of colour. In 2020, together with her friend Simonne Mitchelson, she created a scholarship for BIPOC students at Cal Poly’s College of Agriculture. And she commissions friends from her hometown of DC to design the labels on her wine bottles. “All of my artists are from DC; they are all Black women or people of colour, who I grew up with,” she says. “So money’s going back into that community, and it’s also telling that story. It's hard being in an industry where you don’t always see yourself, and I feel really lucky that over these last few years there's been a lot more discussion about community. It's been awesome to see all these little pockets and niches linked up.”
For the moment, Justin still has a full-time job in hospitality which takes up time and energy. Her ambition is to be able to concentrate on Ward Four Wines as her main occupation. “I would love to expand. I’m doing it for the younger me – to be able to have my own business and offer tastings in the middle of a Redwood forest or travel to Seattle for a women-in-wine experience. I’m working and building and growing; I’m fighting for something that I’ve built and I think that’s the coolest part.”
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