A Black-owned wine brand making waves has hit its next milestone.

Florida woman Desiree Noisette founded her wine brand Mermosa four years ago, and today she’s recognized for making history as the state’s first-ever Black woman winemaker, Click Orlando reports. According to the outlet, it was Noisette’s family’s own love story that inspired her to create her own wine company. “Mermosa is inspired by our family’s first mermaid. Her name was Celestine Noisette,” she recalled of a story that goes back to the late 1700s when Celestine met and married a white Frenchman named Phillipe in Haiti. “Then shortly after they moved to Charleston, South Carolina. And when they moved to Charleston, Phillipe, unfortunately, had to protect his family from being sold into the slave trade because his wife was black and his children were mixed.” Phillipe reportedly wrote a fake bill of sale to purchase his wife and children, but the state of South Carolina denied his petition. Nonetheless, Phillipe continued his efforts to save his family and even wrote in his will...