Wine is often seen as a male-dominated field. The archetype “wino” in your mind’s eye is probably an old middle-aged man, with a round belly and grey hair. But these women offer a different narrative. Here are five women to raise a glass to on International Women’s Day:
Arianna Occhipinti is a young wine maker from Sicily, who’s focused on using sustainable techniques and cultivating the character of the land. Working in one of Italy’s oldest wine regions, she’s producing exciting and refreshing wines.
Rachel Signer, a natural wine journalist and writer, whose book You Had Me at Pet-Nat is a beautiful memoir of wine, nature and love. She writes vibrantly and also produces a small amount of natural wine, under the label Cleopatra Wines (formerly called Persephone Wines). She now runs a natural wine magazine called Pipette.
For 25 years, Elena Adell headed up wine production at Campo Viejo. Yep, that iconically yellow labelled Spanish wine you find in almost every supermarket in Newington is woman-run. The winery is also recognised as a benchmark for sustainability and is the first Spanish winery to certify its carbon footprint through the Spanish Association for Standardization and Certification – an organisation designed to regulate Spanish industry and build trust between consumers and firms. Adell has recently passed the reigns onto Ignacio López, but the team is still female-dominated (3/4 in fact).
Away from the vineyards and into the classroom, Bernadette Gagnier is a PhD Research Student based in Washington, US who’s studying plant pathology and viticulture (wine making) to see how we can grow better vines, to make better wines. This sort of research will shape the future of wine production.
Finally, it wouldn’t be a women-in-wine list if I didn’t mention Jancis Robinson. Arguably the world’s preeminent wine critic who popularised wine through her ’90s TV show. Advising the late Queen, she’s also designed her own wine glass (of course) and has made wine accessible and engaging.
Illustration by Rosie Warwood, @rosiewarwoodart on Instagram.