Iris Rideau

Iris Rideau (born c. 1937) is a French Creole winemaker, businesswoman and activist. She is the first Creole-American winemaker to own and operate a winery in the United States.

Early life Rideau was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, a paternal descendant of Frenchman Armand Allard Gabriel Duplantier who sailed to America in 1777 on Marquis de Lafayette's ship La Victoire and established a plantation in Point Coupee, and later the Magnolia Mound plantation in Baton Rouge.

She grew up in the Creole 7th Ward of the city, where her mother and uncles operated the Creole Bar and Grille. She has said, "There was not a great emphasis placed on education in my community, especially with Creole. Both my father and my mother attended high school, but neither graduated. Her father left the family and departed to California after her parents divorced when she was two-years old." She initially aspired to become a Broadway dancer. Her grandmother moved in and taught Rideau to speak French. In the summer months she visited her father and worked at his ranch in Corona, California, and after several years of insistence that she wanted to live closer to her father, they moved into a one-room flat in eastern Los Angeles when she was 12. She was an involved investment and securities broker in Los Angeles, and became actively involved in seeking better rights for ethnic minorities. Rideau gained much respect in Los Angeles for her activism in the 1960s, and from 1973 to 1976, she was appointed as Chairman to the Mayor’s Affirmative Action Committee, under then-Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, a job which involved securing employment for hundreds of ethnic minority women in the city. She managed the Rideau Insurance Agency from 1967 to 1999, and in 1982, she established Rideau Securities Firm, and set up two offices with 50 employees. This land became Rideau Vineyard two years later.

Rideau sold her insurance agency and brokerage company in 1997. Black Enterprise magazine has said that she "effortlessly combines delectable grapes from the Rhone Valley of France with the savory taste of Creole cuisine in her winery."

She sold 300 cases in her first year and now produces some 7,500 cases annually and has worked with winemakers Ariel Lavie (2002-2005) and Andres Ibarra (2005-2008) making around $3.5 million a year. Her wines have won the Best in Show in the Los Angeles International Wine Competition.