Andrew Mayer Cohen, better known to his fans as Mayer Hawthorne, is an American singer, producer, songwriter and DJ. He’s also a passionate wine lover who thinks music and a glass of wine are the perfect pairing. And now he’s starting a wine club to prove it.
The Ann Arbor, Michigan–raised musician began his career making beats and DJ-ing in Detroit before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a music career. Since his debut single, “Just Ain't Gonna Work Out,” in 2008, he has become recognized for his genre-bending mix of hip-hop, R&B and neo-soul. He's released five studio albums and earned a Grammy nomination for his How Do You Do album. Hawthorne also performs in the group Tuxedo, and as producer and writer, he's worked with numerous artists, including Chika and Jordan Ward.
Hawthorne's fascination with wine deepened when he became a silent partner with wine specialist Daryl Nuhn and chefs Jeremiah Stone and Fabián von Hauske at Peoples, a wine shop and bar that was located at the now-shuttered Market Line food hall inside Essex Crossing in New York City.
Days after COVID lockdowns began in March 2020, Hawthorne launched a livestreaming YouTube series from his living room, dubbed Wine & Vinyl Hour, where he played rare records from his impressive collection and had conversations with his viewers about music and wine. That spawned the recently launched Wine & Vinyl Collectors Club. Each quarterly subscription box is curated by Hawthorne and features three bottles of organically and sustainably farmed wines and a vinyl record chosen to enhance the wine-drinking experience, or vice versa.
Hawthorne recently talked with Wine Spectator senior editor Aaron Romano about introducing people to new kinds of music and wine, the inextricable link between the two and the harmony in pairing them together.
When and how did your interest in wine begin?
I want to preface everything by saying I am not a wine expert by any stretch of the imagination. I've always loved wine but never really dove in seriously until 2019. I went in with a group of hospitality industry friends and opened a wine shop in Manhattan. We opened a few months before COVID shut everything down. It was definitely a challenge. But I learned so much from them, and I'm still learning.
Where did the idea for a wine and vinyl club come from?
The concept started during the pandemic as a way for me to cope with what was going on. I would throw on a record at home and open a bottle of wine, and my manager said, "Hey, why don't you turn the camera on and let everybody into your living room? We can all kind of be together in a time when nobody could be together."
I thought that was a great idea, but I didn't realize how many people would be interested. It quickly turned into this incredible community of people who would meet up at the same time and talk about and listen to music. Then people started asking about the wines I was drinking and where they could get them so we could have even more of a shared experience. That was kind of the lightning bolt moment.
Do you find wine collectors and vinyl collectors analogous?
Vinyl and wine are truly never-ending, and nobody can know or collect it all. I've been collecting records since I was a child—way longer than I've been drinking wine—and just when I think I'm starting to know it all, I realize I've barely scratched the surface. And I think that's true for wine as well.
I think a lot of people who collect records also love wine for the collectability factor and the tangible factor [of] listening to a great record or drinking a great bottle of wine.
How do you see wine and music going together?
Listening to a great record or drinking a great bottle of wine are life experiences that create memories. I think you associate periods of your life with songs, and the same is true for a certain bottle of wine. The creation of memories is something that really ties them together.
It's all about creating a vibe. Especially in 2024, everything is about curating a vibe. And two of the most foolproof ways to create a good vibe are music and wine.
What comes first when creating the box—the album or the wine?
Sometimes, it's the wine. I'll be drinking a bottle of wine, and it'll spark a memory of a song. Like, wow, you know, that feels just like this Barrington Levy reggae LP.
But I would say more often, the music dictates the wine. For example, I'll throw on Roy Ayers' Everybody Loves the Sunshine, and it will remind me of sitting in the park in the summertime in Silver Lake, and from there I go, “Ok, what type of wine would I be drinking?” Probably some funky orange wine or a light rosé.
I compose a letter in each shipment explaining why I selected each bottle and particular record and how I think they are related. I like to tell a story, if I can, about how I discovered the wines or what makes them. But these wines and vinyl, while they're designed to be a pairing, that doesn't mean that you have to enjoy them together.
How do you curate the wine and vinyl selections?
Some are wines I've had before, but a lot of the wines were introduced to me by Erin Sylvester or Zev Rovine at Sylvester/Rovine Selections, one of the big natural wine importers out of New York. They've been a huge resource for all this because I trust their taste.
When it comes to the vinyl, I'm trying to focus on records that I believe everyone should own while also trying to steer clear of, say, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors. As much as I love that album, if you're a record collector, you probably already have that one!
For example, in the concept box we did before we opened up the subscription, I chose Marvin Gaye's I Want You, which is one of my favorite albums of all time and a great example of something that is not his most popular album but that I consider to be essential listening. My goal is to introduce people to something they're unfamiliar with or have heard about but never had a chance to dive in.
Do you have a quintessential wine for matching with a wide variety of music?
For me, personally, I think right now it's hard to beat a chilled red. It's what I find myself reaching for more than anything. I'm really loving the Italian chilled reds right now, and I'm always in the mood for that. It just feels like it kind of goes with everything.
Any interest in having your own wine label in the future?
I will leave that to the people who are really good at it! If there's one thing I have learned so far from doing this, it is difficult to make great wine. I have the most incredible amount of respect for the winemakers who are doing this. It's unbelievable the amount of knowledge and skill it takes.
