Sips, Stories, and Lagos Nights: Inside Folakemi Alli-Balogun’s Wine World.

The Wine Club Lagos event (9 Nov 2025): A Symphony of Wine and Sound, The Metropolitan Club, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Folakemi Alli-Balogun is not your average Nigerian woman. The Nigerian lawyer, entrepreneur and wine curator has built a career that stretches across borders and industries.

From holding certifications from the Cape Wine Academy in South Africa, to being selected for the prestigious Bordeaux Mentor Week global wine scholarship, and also hosting curated wine events at the renowned Metropolitan Club in the heart of Lagos alongside literary juggernauts like Wole Soyinka… Folakemi is shaping a new narrative for the relationship with wine not only in Nigeria, but across Africa!

In this conversation with Postcards from The Diaspora’s (PFTD) Yinka Oloòtọ́, Folakemi opens up about her journey from youthful curiosity to founding The Wine Club Lagos as a vibrant, inclusive space that: blends Nigerian cultural energy with wine appreciation, challenges elitist stereotypes, fosters community across generations, and champions women’s leadership in shaping Africa’s wine narrative.

1. Can you describe the moment you first fell in love with wine and how that moment shaped your decision to found The Wine Club Lagos?

Official Logo of The Wine Club Lagos

Folakemi: I can’t remember a particular moment when I fell in love with wine, but I do remember the first time I had wine. Let’s just say I was a bit too young to be drinking at that time, but I remember seeing a bottle in my aunt’s fridge and plucking up the courage to ask her if I could have some, and she said yes, on the condition that I would share it with my cousins as she didn’t want us to return a half drunk bottle to the fridge. My cousins tasted it and didn’t like it, and I had to finish the whole bottle myself. I wouldn’t say at that time that I fell in love with wine, but it definitely sparked my curiosity. Fast forward to university days when I was old enough to drink, wine was always my drink of choice, not because I particularly liked it, but because it seemed to be quite an affordable option. It wasn’t until after university that I got more access and perhaps more money to buy wines of better quality, and it was probably about then that my appreciation began to grow. Moving back to Nigeria, I couldn’t carry on with wine being my drink of choice because there simply weren’t as many options as I would have liked, so a friend said to me one day, I think you should start a wine club. At the time, I didn’t even know what that was, but it definitely sounded like something I wanted to do, so I did, and the rest is history.

2. How do you translate Lagos’s energy and cultural rhythms into the experiences you curate for members and events?

Folakemi: People in Lagos love to have a good time. They also love to enjoy experiences that they don’t see very often, so whenever I’m thinking of an experience, I’m inspired to create something unusual. I also try to add an element of competition because Lagosians love to compete against each other. All in good fun.

3. Tell me about a single tasting or event that changed your thinking about wine, culture, and/or community. What happened and why did it matter?

Folakemi: Again, not a single tasting but a culmination of all tastings I’ve done over the years. What I’ve realised is that wine unites people. At The Wine Club Lagos, we have members of all ages from people in their 70s and 80s to people in their 20s. When they come together at tastings, it seems like everyone is the same age. The way they team up to compete against other teams is truly refreshing to see. Wine culture has also given me an avenue to meet and connect with people I normally wouldn’t get to connect with on a personal level.

4. How do you see wine culture intersecting with Nigerian identity, tradition, and contemporary creativity?

Folakemi: The Nigerian cultural and creative scene is constantly evolving and breaking barriers in music, art, fashion and so on, and with the same spirit, it will be no different, recognising of course that wine itself is art.

5. What social or cultural barriers have you encountered in building a wine community in Lagos, and how have you navigated them?

Folakemi: When I started The Wine Club Lagos, I was a lot younger than I am now and I found myself almost having to defend myself when people would ask: Are you just a drunkard? What are you doing with wine? I would have to explain that I was a lawyer working in one of the big four accounting firms and that wine was a passion project for me, and somehow, that would make me more palatable for some people. I also remember being discouraged from starting a wine club when I spoke to a senior person in the culinary industry at the time. Well, I’m glad I didn’t listen to her. Thankfully, this does not represent the majority of my experience, just a tiny part. Most people are very accepting and supportive and I’m grateful for that. In terms of navigating the barriers, I just stuck with it. I’m driven by passion and a genuine love for wine, so that definitely helped.

The Wine Club Lagos event (9 Nov 2025): A Symphony of Wine and Sound, The Metropolitan Club, Victoria Island, Lagos.

6. How does The Wine Club Lagos balance education and accessibility with the language of luxury that often surrounds wine?

Folakemi: When I started The Wine Club Lagos, I thought about many things, but luxury wasn’t one of them. This was because I was a young professional who had just started my career, so luxury was the farthest thing from my mind at the time. I simply didn’t fit the stereotype of what people expect wine drinkers to be and there were many others like me who loved wine, so I focused on creating experiences that they would enjoy and engaged with them in a way that they would understand and digest. Doing this made wine less intimidating and made people more curious to see what we were about.

7. What role do you think women should play in shaping Africa’s wine narrative, and how do you mentor or amplify other women in the space?

Folakemi: Women are trailblazers everywhere they go. Wine is no different. Women are constantly raising the bar and pushing the envelope all over the world when it comes to wine. I’ve been to vineyards where only women are involved in the wine production process, from viticulture to harvesting to winemaking to marketing and so on, and there is always a special touch that women bring to everything they do. I have been mentored by women in the wine industry, particularly Chinedu Rita Rosa and Jane Anson who selected me for a mentorship programme called Bordeaux Mentor Week in 2023, and since then, I have volunteered for the programme by coaching women for the applications so they can also be selected and even showing up to chaperone them during the programme. I also collaborate with the few other women who are in the wine space in Nigeria like importers, retailers and even those in the culinary industry who are wine adjacent.

An evening with Wole Soyinka

8. How do you measure success personally and for the club?

Folakemi: Apart from the satisfaction of successfully achieving any plans or goals I set out for the club for the year, the most important is the satisfaction of our clients and members, through the feedback they give us and sometimes even just the look on their faces. That’s enough for me.

9. What misconceptions about wine culture in Nigeria would you like to correct and how do you address them?

Folakemi: There are so many, but I’ll name a few. A lot of people think they need to be wine experts to join The Wine Club Lagos. That’s simply not true. You just need to be curious. There are also so many myths that surround wine culture in Nigeria like that wine has to be expensive for you to enjoy it, that Nigerians only like sweet wines, and that the older a wine is, the better it is. All lies.

The Wine Club Lagos event (9 Nov 2025): A Symphony of Wine and Sound, The Metropolitan Club, Victoria Island, Lagos.

10. Looking ahead, in the medium to long term, what cultural or social impact do you hope The Wine Club Lagos will have on Lagos and Africa?

Folakemi: The Wine Club Lagos is not just about drinking wine. It’s about connections, memories and creativity, so I hope it will be an avenue for people around the world to discover, experience and enjoy African creativity. I hope it will encourage us to think outside the box of what wine could be. I also hope it will spark more curiosity and even investments, not just in wine but in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.

To summarise, in many ways Folakemi’s story mirrors the story of PFTD, in that, passion, curiosity and cultural pride can and will reshape entire industries. Through The Wine Club Lagos, Folakemi has created a space where community, creativity and connection thrive, proving that wine culture can be both accessible and a distinctly African experience. As the continent continues to redefine its place in global conversations on art, food and lifestyle, her work stands as an invitation to Nigerians and Africans everywhere to explore, celebrate and invest in a homegrown vision of wine excellence. Embracing Folakemi’s journey is a necessary start in embracing our own journey as Africans. I implore all our readers to follow Folakemi and The Wine Club Lagos’s journey close as they continue to transcend beyond preconceived Western ideals.

This interview was conducted and drafted by Journalist Yinka Oloòtọ́.