This Son Of 2 Immigrants Turned 20 Acres Of Weeds Into An Award-Winning Winery
HuffPost
Akash Patel, owner of Akash Winery, shares what it's like to build a winery from scratch and the importance of representation in the industry.
Located within a 90-minute drive of San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange County and Palm Springs, Temecula, California, is home to around 50 wineries, including immigrant- and first-generation-owned Akash Winery. Married couple Ray (born in Uganda) and Nalini Patel (born in Kenya) are of Indian descent and had always liked wine and gardening, respectively, but hadn’t worked in the wine industry before. In 2010, the family bought a 20-acre lot, and since then the immigrant American dream has come alive, with a tasting room that opened in 2019, a planned resort to be built on the property, award-winning Cabernet Sauvignon and rosés, and a new venture, Akash Brewing. For this edition of Voices In Food, Akash Patel, Ray and Nalini’s son and namesake winery owner, talked to Garin Pirnia about creating a winery from literally the ground up, South Asian American representation, his parents’ journey, and how he hopes Temecula will be the next Napa.
My parents both emigrated from Africa. They were refugees and kicked out by [Ugandan despot] Idi Amin, in the ’70s. They went to London, Canada and then ended up in a small town in the states, in New Mexico — that’s where I was born. My parents started a motel business there. They bought a broken down motel, fixed it up, ran and operated it, and did it again to the next one.