The Academy Award-winning actress spoke to attendees at the 2026 'Food & Wine' Classic in Aspen about how her son inspired her wine brand MianU
Credit: Emma McIntyre/Getty
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Key Takeaways
- Regina King honored her late son Ian Alexander Jr. at the 2026 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen
- King shared how Ian’s spirit inspired her wine brand MianU which she founded in 2024
- She described Ian’s unique ability to connect with others and how MianU helps preserve their bond
Regina King is honoring her late son Ian Alexander Jr.
Speaking at the Tall Tales & Cocktails seminar at the 2026 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen on Saturday, June 20, King shared how her son's spirit was the inspiration behind her wine brand, MianU Wines.
“[Ian] can be completely committed to his point of view, but he can fully see somebody else's feelings. He can notice when they're hurt, they're embarrassed, when they're feeling left out and that's not an easy thing to be. I struggle with that,” she told attendees at the seminar. “A lot of us struggle with that, you know, that thing of we're just so locked into what we think and we're trying to prove ourselves right that we stop seeing the person right next to us.”
She said, “Ian was always beautiful in that way. He always was generous at doing both. He could stand 10 toes down in his truth and he could still reach for you. He can be funny, honest, stubborn and tender all in the same moment."
Ian Alexander Jr. died in January 2022, shortly after his 26th birthday. He is King's only child who she shares with her ex-husband and record producer, Ian Alexander Sr.
Credit: Kevin Mazur/AMA2019/Getty
The Academy Award-winning actress, 55, also read a touching personal journal entry her son wrote, in which he described walking from Burbank, Calif. to Hollywood and taking a moment to meditate while listening to the cars that passed him by.
“What was at first noisy cars became peaceful waves, all holding a unique and beautiful soul driving it,” she recited Ian's entry in part. “At that moment, I chose not to dwell on what is lost or presently unattainable, but began ruminating on the possibility of what the present can be.”
King founded MianU — pronounced “me and you” and featuring Ian's name — in 2024 as an orange wine company honoring her son and the pair's mutual love for wine and community. After all, King told attendees, it was Ian who first introduced her to orange wine.
“Ian's curiosity, his complexity, his art, his connection, his impeccable taste, the way he can take something ordinary, something loud, something chaotic and transform it, not by denying what it is, but by listening to it differently,” she said. “That is part of how MianU was born because if grief takes away the ordinary ways of creating new memories, then love has to find another way.”
The Watchmen star added that MianU has become “one of those ways” that she and Ian can continue to “keep creating memories together” through “the essence of who Ian is.”
Credit: Galdones Photography
“That's the part that still, you know, takes my breath away that the fact is that he's physically not here anymore to make new memories with and that's kind of one of the quiet cruelties of grief that it's not only what you lose but it's what you don't get to keep creating in the same way,” she said.
As King painted a heartfelt picture of Ian's spirit, she told attendees, “I always speak of Ian in the present because he's always with me.”
Events at the 2026 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen ran through Sunday, June 21.
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