How Channing Frye Went From the NBA to Making Wine in the Willamette Valley

Tinfoil Swans Podcast

On this episode

When you meet a dynamic, brilliant, open human being like Channing Frye, it honestly doesn’t matter if you know much about basketball or grapes — his two great passions. The NBA star turned winemaker is so gloriously engaging about his passions and open about his emotions that he could probably talk to one of the cows on the farm he grew up next to and they’d become his biggest fan. At the 2024 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen this past June, Frye sat down for a truly delightful conversation about why he named his brand “Chosen Family,” what got him off the couch after a bout with depression, what it’s really like to drink wine on a private plane with an NBA team, and why he’s such a giant nerd.

Meet our guest

Channing Frye is the founder and owner of Chosen Family Wines, along with partners Kevin Love, Chase Renton, and Jacob Gray. Frye is a former NBA power forward-center who was a first-round draft pick for the New York Knicks in 2005 and went on to play for the Portland Trail Blazers, Phoenix Suns, Orlando Magic, Cleveland Cavaliers (winning the 2016 NBA Championship), and Los Angeles Lakers, before returning to the Cavaliers and retiring in 2019. Frye has worked as the host of the “Talkin’ Blazers Podcast,” “Road Trippin’,” and as a studio analyst for NBATV and NBA on TNT. Chosen Family helps support The Roots Fund, a nonprofit organization that empowers the BIPOC community in the wine industry.

Meet our host

Kat Kinsman is the executive features editor at Food & Wine, author of Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves, host of Food & Wine’s podcast, and founder of Chefs With Issues. Previously, she was the senior food & drinks editor at Extra Crispy, editor-in-chief and editor at large at Tasting Table, and the founding editor of CNN Eatocracy. She won a 2020 IACP Award for Personal Essay/Memoir and has had work included in the 2020 and 2016 editions of The Best American Food Writing. She was nominated for a James Beard Broadcast Award in 2013, won a 2011 EPPY Award for Best Food Website with 1 million unique monthly visitors, and was a finalist in 2012 and 2013. She is a sought-after international keynote speaker and moderator on food culture and mental health in the hospitality industry, and is the former vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee.

Highlights from the episode

On the power of uniqueness

“There’s always going to be something new and hot. Like, oh, let’s make this new grape varietal. Let’s mix Pinot Noir and Cabernet and make it cool, instead of just being like, why don’t we just take things that are already great and then make them unique with your own vision? Wine is an art.”

On fighting fear by confronting it

“I never saw a vineyard until I was 24 years old, and my wife took me on my first one when I got traded to Portland. I was like, ‘What the hell is this?’ And that’s why I think I’m so passionate about it is cause a lot of people, whether you’re Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, doesn’t matter — they just don’t know how awesome a vineyard is until you go. Like, your phone service doesn’t work. You’re going to have a good time. You’ve got to talk. You’re going to meet great people. You get to hang out with your friends. This is the most conversationally active drink in the world.”

On crushing beers in the locker room

“My job was to be in the best shape possible. But it’s also the culture of professional sports to drink. When I came in the league in 2005, I was 22. There would be guys who have a little beer cooler next to their locker. The minute the game’s over, they have ice on their knees, their back, their elbows, whatever. They’re six beers deep by the time they get out of the shower. That was the norm, crushing beers. Maybe somebody would bring a bottle of Jack Daniels or [Grey] Goose on the plane. It’s how you connected — until the whole ‘take care of your health, stretch, and don’t do stupidness’ change. And you don’t want to come to the game smelling like tequila or vodka. So, guys started to really get into wine.”

On depression sweatpants

“I knew I was going to go into TV, but that’s still just falling into the same kind of sports thing. I’m like, I want to do something more than that. So I took six months. I was an absolute bum on my couch and just depressed, and my wife finally said, ‘Dude, you’re grossing me out. Get out of your sweatpants and write down things you love, things that are going to get you up and be active and be happy,” and this and that. And, so I wrote, like, ‘family, friends, eating, drinking, new places, seeing the world, talking.’ We definitely hit the therapy right after that — don’t get it twisted. I see my doctor every week, and I love her to death.”

On sticking up for family

My favorite character of all time is Magneto. Big Magneto guy from X-Men. X-Men ’97 was great. Not to super nerd out, but I feel like at some point, you gotta stick up for your family. It may not be nice to everyone else, but there’s only so many times you’re going to allow people — whether that’s your extended family or whatever — to talk about you, to beat you down. Somebody has to stand up, and it may be you gotta lay some hands on somebody. It may be you gotta write a scathing, ‘Per my last email.’ Whatever that is, somebody has to stick up for your family and do what’s right to love and protect them.”

On perfection

“Perfection is unrealistic and that word sucks. The journey is the perfection. Like, when I’m on my deathbed, whenever that is, I’m not going to be like, ‘Oh, I should’ve went with 35% new oak in 2020.'”

About the podcast

Food & Wine has led the conversation around food, drinks, and hospitality in America and around the world since 1978. Tinfoil Swans continues that legacy with a new series of intimate, informative, surprising, and uplifting interviews with the biggest names in the culinary industry, sharing never-before-heard stories about the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made these personalities who they are today.

This season, you’ll hear from icons and innovators like Daniel Boulud, Rodney Scott, Asma Khan, Emeril and E.J. Lagasse, Claudia Fleming, Dave Beran and Will Poulter, Dan Giusti, Priya Krishna, Lee Anne Wong, Cody Rigsby, Kevin Gillespie, Pete Wells, David Chang, Christine D’Ercole, Channing Frye, Nick Cho, and other special guests going deep with host Kat Kinsman on their formative experiences; the dishes and meals that made them; their joys, doubts and dreams; and what’s on the menu in the future. Tune in for a feast that’ll feed your brain and soul — and plenty of wisdom and quotable morsels to savor.

New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen and follow on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

These interview excerpts have been edited for clarity.

Editor’s Note: The transcript for download does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.