One Acre, Big Vision: Preserving History Through Wine, Agriculture, and Community
Stephanie L. Franklin was standing in the rain, deep in the East Texas woods, watching her Lexus spin in the mud. She had driven out to Shankleville with a friend, a courthouse map and no clear idea where her grandfather’s land actually sat.
Most people would call the day a loss. For Franklin, that’s when everything clicked.
“I could plant a vineyard here, I can build a winery, I can do some type of cultural destination, and I could create jobs and opportunities for future generations. In that moment, it was less about the wine, but how can I utilize the land?”
Founder and vintner of Franklin Vines, Stephanie L. Franklin is building Shankleville’s first vineyard — a freedom colony her ancestors Jim and Winnie Shankle founded after emancipation. Jim Shankle walked roughly 400 miles out of slavery to reunite with Winnie in East Texas. In freedom, the family and co-founder Steve McBride went on to hold more than 4,000 acres by the 1880s, building schools, churches and farms on soil they owned outright. On Dec. 7, 2024, on a plot passed down from her grandfather Guyler Shankle, Franklin broke ground where her family’s story began.
During the pandemic, Franklin found herself reassessing what she wanted the next chapter of her life to become. “This part of my life, the next part of my life, I want to do something that I’m passionate about,” she said. That passion was wine. She enrolled at the Texas Wine School, stacked WSET certifications and started chasing the industry from the inside.
THE STUDENT
Chasing it meant an internship in Napa during wildfire season, pulling grapes off vines and running them to the lab to test for smoke taint — the char wildfire smoke leaves in fruit, capable of ruining an entire vintage. Friends told her she was crazy to fly into a fire zone. Her answer: “Unless I receive a sign from God telling me not to go, I’m going.”
The sign never came. “It takes a lot to get from grape to glass,” she said.
A year later she took a second internship in Texas, a full harvest this time. Weighing fruit off the trucks. Punchdowns, the process of pressing grape skins back into fermenting juice to pull color and flavor. Driving a forklift across the production pad. She was the oldest intern on the crew, and her body let her know it. “I was achy from my gums to my toenails,” she said. Some evenings she cried. Every morning she laced her Timberlands and went back.
People questioned why a woman who wanted to own a winery was doing grunt work. “You don’t have to understand it,” she told them. “For me, I need to understand from A to Z.”
That answer holds the jewel. Franklin refused to skip the student phase on her way to the owner’s chair, and the industry noticed. “I was the oldest intern, but I was told that I was the best intern,” Franklin said with a smile. She now sits on the board of the Shankleville Historical Society and has judged wine at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
THE VISION
In December 2019, she registered Franklin Vines with the state of Texas. “I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t know where my resources were gonna come from,” she said. “I just saw the vision.”
The vision demands patience, because young vines take three to four years to bear usable fruit. So Franklin found a bridge: a custom crush, an arrangement where an existing winery produces wine to your exact specifications while you build your own operation. Her debut, a 2022 Founders Series Tannat, is made from sourced Texas fruit while the Shankleville vines mature — a distinction she keeps honest. Tannat is a thick-skinned French varietal from Madiran that handles Texas heat better than most grapes. It also carries more polyphenols — the antioxidants your doctor praises in dark chocolate and green tea — than most reds. She bought a little over a ton of fruit, made every call on oak, corks and labels, and aged the wine from 2022 to 2024.
The decision to stay in motion paid off. Her Tannat took gold at the International Women’s Wine Competition and silver at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Ninety-eight cases were produced. More than half are gone. “She showed up and showed out,” Franklin said of her wine debut. “I’m so proud of her.”
Even the win came with a lesson. “If I had to do it over again, I would have started with the white and a rosé,” she said — both cost less and reach the bottle faster than a red. A good student audits their own victories.
Doubt found her too. In Italy through the Veraison Project, Franklin toured a woman-owned winery sitting on 100 acres and admitted she was starting with one. Before she left, the founder found her in the room. “She was looking me dead in the eye,” Franklin recalled. “She said, ‘We started with one acre. So you keep going.’”
THE MISSION
Back home, the mission has outgrown the bottle. Her Adopt a Vine campaign lets supporters fund the planting and put their names in the vineyard. A section of the vineyard will honor Shankleville descendants — including relatives who found her from as far away as Australia after her Good Morning America feature aired. “This is not a Stephanie project,” she said. “I cannot do this alone.”
Franklin ultimately envisions Franklin Vines becoming far more than a winery. Her long-term plans include agritourism, educational programming, culinary experiences, internships, cultural preservation and economic development centered around Shankleville. “Wine is simply the vehicle,” she said. “The legacy is much bigger.”
Ask what drives her and she goes straight to the source. “If they were able to do that with the limited resources after being freed by emancipation, they laid the foundation for us,” she said. “I know I can push through. Whether I succeed or fail, I’d better try.”
Her advice for anyone circling a pivot is blunt. “Get started, because nothing is ever gonna be 100 percent perfect. Get started and get you some mentors.” And for anyone convinced the window has closed: “Do not let your age discourage you.”
The vines go in soon. When they do, Franklin plans a harvest celebration with descendants picking grapes on land purchased by formerly enslaved ancestors after gaining their freedom.
Meet Stephanie L. Franklin and Franklin Vines www.franklinvineswine.com. Buy the Tannat while it’s still pouring, adopt a vine, and follow the road to the first Shankleville harvest.
Pour a glass of Black history and drink to the family that turned freedom into 4,000 acres.
