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Coming to America gave an Ethiopian entrepreneur the chance to manage a family limousine company that took people on tours through Northern California’s wine country. Gize Negussie noticed something significant that mattered to him. None of the wineries in Napa Valley or Sonoma County served or sold the ancient beverage Tej, a wine made from raw honey.
“When I lived in San Francisco, I had the chance to visit a lot of top wineries. But none of them had honey wine. I wanted to introduce the traditional Ethiopian honey wine to Americans because I was sure they would enjoy it,” says Negussie, the CEO of Negus Winery & Meadery.
The native of Addis Ababa moved to the Washington, D.C. area in 2018, seven years after emigrating to the U.S. from Ethiopia. He brought his vision of sharing honey wine’s qualities with the area’s sizeable Ethiopian population and with people who had never tried it.
“To be honest with you, I love seeing people fall in love with honey wine for the first time. That gives me a lot of energy and brings me so much joy.”
Launching Negus Winery & Meadery
The Northern Virginia resident began making honey wine in 2021. He officially opened the Negus Winery & Meadery in January 2024, offering what he says no other Ethiopian winemakers in this country have.
“I wanted a place where we could gather to enjoy honey wine. This is the first tasting room in the United States that features or serves Ethiopian honey wine in a tasting room.”
Negussie chose to launch his winery near the nation’s capital because of the substantial Ethiopian presence in the region. He is one of the thousands of Ethiopians who now call D.C., Maryland or Virginia home.
The 2010 U.S. Census put the number of Ethiopian immigrants at more than 30,000. The Migration Policy Institute and the Embassy of Ethiopia estimate the Ethiopian population in the D.C. area to be 200,000 or more, the largest outside of Africa.
The numerous Ethiopian-owned restaurants and stores on both sides of the Potomac provided Negussie with places to sell the honey wine he makes at Negus Winery & Meadery in Alexandria, Virginia.
He grew up watching Tekuam Hailu produce Tej by hand for family gatherings and celebrations. “That is why I call my brand Mama’s Honey Wine because I learned to make it from my mom,” says the winemaker. “As kids, we drank it before it had fermentation or alcohol. When you get older in Ethiopia, you can enjoy it with more fermentation and high alcohol content.”
A Healthier Approach to Winemaking
Tej, also known as honey wine, dates back more than 3,000 years to Ethiopia’s Queen of Sheba. One legend has her presenting King Solomon with a gift of the fermented spirit made from honey. What was once considered a royal drink is today Ethiopia’s national drink and is enjoyed in other places worldwide.
More than 30 businesses carried Mama’s Honey Wine, including top Ethiopian restaurants, before Negussie opened the tasting room. “I was working on it for the past few years. The only problem was finding the right space that had handicapped accessories and also was neat and clean,” the CEO comments.
The right place turned out to be a space at 5509 Vine Street in Alexandria, next to the winery’s production facility. It took more than seven months for the winemaker to get approval for the tasting room from federal, state and local agencies.
Negussie had already implemented a modern production process for making traditional Tej with just three ingredients: raw wildflower honey, water and yeast grown specifically for his winery. “It’s 100 percent free of sulfites. I’m very proud and so glad it is completely natural,” Negussie maintains.
The Negus Winery & Meadery’s owner remembers hearing that preservative-free honey wine is healthier. “I’m not a chemist, but to me, it is similar to kombucha. I grew up listening to family members in Ethiopia saying people who drink honey wine are healthier than people who drink any other type of alcohol,” Negussie recalls.
Some sources report that Tej aids digestion and helps fight infection. While there is no scientific proof yet, Negussie believes the taste of the honey wine he produces will more than satisfy those visiting the Negus Winery & Meadery Tasting Room.
Making Mama’s Honey Wines
The winemaker did his research before selecting the ingredients for Mama’s Honey Wine, which was named as a tribute to his mother. He makes the Tej in Italian-made, stainless steel tanks. Negussie gets his wildflower honey from Pennsylvania to achieve a taste similar to traditional Ethiopian honey wine. It is often classified as mead, an ancient fermented drink made with honey, water and yeast.
The first production stage at Negus Winery & Meadery is mixing the honey, water and proprietary yeast and transferring it to the fermentation tank for two to five days. After tasting, the yeast is added to the honey and water before being poured into another clean tank.
“We wait at least a week until it starts to ferment. Then we start checking the pH, the alcohol content and the health of the liquid,” says Negussie. “We are checking for contamination and making sure there are no bacteria.”
Turning the golden nectar into honey wine requires several more steps of “rocking” or transferring the liquid to clean, dry tanks after measuring the pH, alcohol levels and purity. Negussie describes what happens next.
“When it reaches the alcohol content we aim for, semi-sweet or semi-dry, we remove the yeast. Then, we put the liquid into the aging tank and let it sit for up to three months before starting the final filtration to make sure no yeast goes into the bottling system. After that, we package it.”
Negus Winery & Meadery also sells the flagship Mama’s Honey Wine in non-alcoholic, semi-sweet and semi-dry versions. The tasting room serves the fermented beverage in a flask-like container called a berele.
The alcohol content dictates how the honey wines taste. Negussie calls them well-balanced and very smooth. “The semi-sweet is 10% alcohol. You can get the flavor of the fruit and the nice aroma. The semi-dry is 12% alcohol. It tends to be dry, but you can still get the honey flavor.”
Negussie also wants grape wine drinkers to feel welcome in the tasting room. He collaborates with a winery in Purcellville, Virginia, to bottle a red, a white and a rosé under his Melody Wines label.
Visitors can purchase wine by the flask or glass. They can buy bottles of their favorite honey and grape wine at the tasting room or some Ethiopian restaurants and stores. The Negus wines also are sold online and shipped to all 50 states.
Tasting Honey Wine and More
The Negus Winery & Meadery’s location in Alexandria provides an inviting, comfortable place for guests to taste Tej and wines made from 100% Virginia grapes. The tasting room is easily accessed by car or public transportation, and a parking lot is available.
Groups of six or more can make appointments to tour the Negus production facility. Interested parties can rent the tasting room for special occasions.
Guests can also try the crispy snacks from Tsiona Foods in Rockville, Maryland, provided for the tasting room. Tsion Bellete founded the company in 2014 and produces five flavors of chips made from Ethiopian injera bread. “We want to support women-owned businesses. That’s why we collaborate with Tsiona Foods,” adds Negussie.
The Negus CEO recently signed an agreement with Weyneshet Tesfaye, who hopes to have a food truck operating by early spring. “We decided to give her support because she is a mother of three,” he says. “Her food is amazing. She’s going to do Ethiopian fusion dishes for our tasting room.”
Negus Winery & Meadery servers will place orders from the tasting room, or guests can go to the food truck and bring their orders inside to enjoy with their wines. “We will give her designated parking in front of our tasting room. In the meantime, we welcome people who want to bring their own food and enjoy it with our wines.”
Future Dreams for Family Business
Negussie’s wife, Hermela, is the tasting room manager and the only relative working with him at Negus Winery & Meadery. However, he still considers it a family-operated business. “We have family businesses in Ethiopia, and even if I started this one, my family was always with me, financially and morally,” he states.
The entrepreneur turned to his mother to learn the family recipe for Tej after another business venture failed. Negussie and two partners had to shut down Negus Brewing Company when the COVID pandemic struck in 2020.
They could not sell the more than 10,000 bottles of craft teff and lager beers they had produced before the six-month expiration dates. “Most of our customers were restaurants and stores that closed. We had to dump the expired stock, so we lost a lot of money,” says the winemaker.
“That’s when I asked my mom about honey wine. It gets better with age, so I decided to continue the Negus business with wine in case another COVID happens.”
The Negus winery owner refused to let past challenges stop him from pursuing his dream of expanding appreciation for the spirits representing his Ethiopian heritage. Pandemic funding from the federal government helped the now U.S. citizen open a new business.
“I did work very hard. This country offered me a lot of opportunities, including government support. It is the land of opportunity. Those are true words for America,” Negussie replies.
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He hopes to resume making teff beer in the coming years and carry out other plans for expanding Negus Winery, LLC. “In the future, I might do a vineyard in Virginia or Maryland for honey and grape wines, a beekeeping business, the brewing business, and a music venue. That’s my next five-year plan,” the CEO discloses.
Today, the Alexandria businessman is focusing on making the Negus Winery & Meadery Tasting Room a success and appreciating what he has. “I am very grateful I grew up with a business family because I learned a lot from my parents,” he says. “I’m also grateful to this country, and don’t take it for granted. America is a great country for those who have dreams and are working very hard.”
Follow @negus_winery on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok for announcements about special events. Go to the Negus Winery & Meadery website for more information on Mama’s Honey Wines and Melody Wines.
