Wine Enthusiast Magazine
SubscribeThe theme of women in wine is one we take seriously at Wine Enthusiast, and not just because we’re staffed with an equal number of men and women on the magazine. In addition to numerous pieces highlighting important women in wine over the last several years, we recently ran an article on the boom of influential women winemakers in Chile, and I joined a panel of notable women for a Wine Portfolio segment on women in wine this summer (full episode to air on CNBC Nov. 4 at 9:30). But beyond the obvious positive, progressive aspect of supporting new faces in our industry (change is essential, and reflects the wine drinking public), is it still very unique to be a woman of any influence in the industry? Is this a topic that’s dated and done?
If you were only to reference numbers, then yes, you’d say times had really changed. Most people have heard that the Davis enology program is now 50/50 with men and women, and we know that something like eight out of every 10 bottles purchased for the home are bought by women—which is power indeed. Look at most large wine companies in America and you’ll see several women in places of influence. True of most wine and food magazines too. Women are operating at high levels in the industry, and are working with great men who support the balance.
Which is why it shocks me how many stories of gender traditionalism I still hear from women in all walks of the wine industry. It’s no Mad Men-style nonsense of behind-slapping or egregious leering, but it is rife with that slippery area of muttered put-downs and clubby exclusion. Based on these stories, it seems there are still a good number of men who, though maybe not as blatantly as in the past, would prefer to keep women out of the old boy’s clique that once typified the business. Is it generational? Or is it a sign that at the hidden but essential levels, the wine world, regardless of age, is still often stuck in the past?
I personally see the wine world as potentially one of the most inclusive, forward-thinking and open industries that exists, and am optimistic that the countless inventive thinkers and influencers I meet in the world of wine will soon clear out any vestige of an outdated past. And let me be fair here—many of these innovators come from the older generations and are all too happy to see change, so it really does not seem to be just about the year in which he or she (because women can contribute to it too) was born.
Is this a non issue these days or are we still stuck in the past? What have you experienced, either as an industry person or a consumer? How can the wine world become more progressive, not only about gender, but about the changing overall face of the wine drinker of the future?
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16 Comments
16 Responses to “How Progressive is the World of Wine?”
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October 29th, 2010 at 3:12:50 PM
Additional conversations among our staff here resulted in interesting insight: What we determined? Women’s role in the wine industry is largely defined by the sector of the business being discussed. Consumers of everyday wine? Lots of women. Purchasers of collectible wine? Few women. Wine producers? Fair amount of women and growing. Wine retailers/sommeliers? Fair amount and growing. But look at the boards of many influential wine companies and I stand corrected–it’s mostly men. Lots of factors determine why…no finger pointing here. And does it really make a difference ? Isn’t it the consumer who ultimately dictates what wine we drink and is available to us? You tell me.
October 29th, 2010 at 10:18:53 PM
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Wine Enthusiast, Marnie. Marnie said: RT @WineEnthusiast: Unreserved: How Progressive is the World of Wine? by Susan Kostrzewa: The theme of women in wine is one we take se… http://bit.ly/bHBCRK [...]
October 30th, 2010 at 7:15:22 PM
Great topic, Susan. thanks for bringing it up. Our import company is built on great wines made in ways that are “progressive” – environmentally, socially, etc. In bringing these wines to market, we are seeing a lot of progress being made, and much more that needs to be made. One area you did not mention is women in sales and distribution. This has been a man’s world for a long time, but women are breaking through here also. We work with three distributors that are women-owned and managed. They’re smart, driven, tough, committed people, and are building very good businesses. We like the idea of supporting their business, but at the end of the day we’re with them because they deliver results.
In terms of whether it makes a difference to consumers, our experience is yes, but ONLY if the product is great. Similar to our decisions about working with women-owned distributors, if the quality is there, then doing something meaningful can be an added benefit. Few consumers will, and no one should, buy and drink wine just because the company making it is doing some bigger good in the world (whether it is being more environmentally sound, or trying to right past social wrongs). But, when consumers get to the shelf with several similarly rated and priced wines, knowing that one is also making that wine in conscientious ways, can “break the tie.” When that happens, everyone wins.
October 31st, 2010 at 12:08:51 AM
This post is quite a vagina monologue. Isn’t it enough that most wine labels are now written in crayon with bright colors to attract women? Now we have to put them on the Board of Directors? A woman’s place is in the tasting room, and of course buttering up the night manager at Safeway to get better slotting. Women are literally the pointy end of the spear in this industry. We all live and die on a set of breasts convincing some burned out retail slob to set up an end cap with your rancid grape juice rather than someone else’s. Fruity? Balanced? Leathery? Only women can say these things. Most men would sound ridiculous. Women already get the cushy jobs in this industry. Before we talk about being “progressive” lets have a moment of silence for the men who wake up at 4am to start dragging 50 foot hoses across a tank farm all day to get in that eight bottling. The more you analyze this industry, the more you realize that the women are already sitting on the balcony of the plantation house, fanning themselves, drinking Chardonnay, while the men are down in the field below breaking their backs. I don’t mind this set up at all. Women should be up there on that pedestal, they shouldn’t be down here. But please, have a little respect for the guys.
October 31st, 2010 at 6:10:13 PM
I’m a woman who’s worked in the wine industry for more than 10 years, both in distribution and retail (I now own a retail shop). Distribution and retail are still overwhelmingly male in my region of the country (the Midwest): of the reps who call on me, only one of 14 is a woman. My customers are also predominantly male (all those women who buy wine must be doing it in the grocery store when they’re shopping for dinner). Even at wine tastings (trade or public), I’m one of the few women.
I’ve always thought this represented a huge opportunity for smart women — we can use our “difference” to sell the heck out of wine to all those men. When we’re educated and knowledgeable, and can be helpful and informative as every sales person should be, we can do extremely well in this industry. I know sales in my store are up…
November 1st, 2010 at 12:16:46 AM
Jack – are you in the beer business?
November 1st, 2010 at 4:06:34 AM
Mr. Worthington, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you commented with the intent of being deliberately inflammatory. For the record, I think that the wine world is a superb example of how women and men are different, but equal. Yes, most men lift and drag better than most women. Women tend to have more astute palates and be better multi-taskers than men, too.
To return to the original point, I think that you have something with the proposition that gender in the wine world is a generational issue. As a young woman in microbial enology, my peers are women as often as men, and we all treat each other with mutual respect. Even though some women number among my professors, that group definitely has the feeling of an old boys’ club. Wine more than other disciplines may emphasize that the genders have different strengths, but I think we value each other all the more for it. Both the ladies and the gents are happy to let the gentleman do the heavier part of the lifting; far more importantly, ALL of us contribute to the dishwashing.
Wait fifteen years, and I think we’ll be looking at a different world.
November 1st, 2010 at 10:16:37 AM
All good and well, as long as there is balance.
I have met many women in the wine business. Many of them were new their stuff.
There have also been many who were peevish and short sighted and wore the ‘feminine’ aspect on their sleeve, and a few who used there gender to an advantage in sales situations. Life takes all kinds.
But is it fair to make an issue of this of the wine industry as a whole?
Isn’t it time to let peoples work stand on its own and progress to another level?
By putting attention on someones gender, isn’t that sometimes asking for extraneous attention? (So and so makes good wine etc and guess what, she is a WOMAN, what a suprise) There are good PEOPLE doing good work in the wine industry, I think that should suffice.
November 1st, 2010 at 11:54:42 AM
As a female ‘Millennial” on the retail side of things, I had an experience a few years ago that reminds me there’s a lot to be done in terms of de-gendering (is this a word??) the industry. My former boss attended a tasting extravaganza with ‘some of the boys’—a few of his customers, some friends on the distributing side, etc. with different generations represented. He accidentally left the tasting sheet at work the next day, and I was naively shocked to find a naked woman provocatively staged with strategically placed grape leaves as the back drop to the list of wines. Clearly, this was a boys’ night and not a general wine get-together, and yet this very ‘old-guard’ subtext was pretty clear.
Jack, if you’d like a copy of that tasting sheet, I’ll be more than happy to send it down to the cellar. As soon as I’m done fanning myself.
November 1st, 2010 at 12:21:48 PM
What in god’s name is the World of Wine (WOW)? If you are developing a new MMORPG for Sommeliers please send me the link. That being said, as you can by now imagine, I feel that creating an illusory construct like WOW is misleading. For example, you have Trolling idiot savants like Jack Worthington (Award for most ludicrous pseudonym) who thinks WOW includes migrant farm workers and the erudite and clever Ms. Kostrzema who thinks WOW includes the CEO of Kraft Foods (just ribbing you Ms K.). I’d like to suggest a restriction of the term WOW to something concrete–of course I just noticed that you suggest this very step in your follow-up note to your blog (Sigh). I should note that women, for the most part seem to like wine a great deal more than men. My evidence for that is my personal experience eating or drinking with men and women, and noting that men never order wine and it is in fact avoided as if it contained dangerous doses of Estrogen. On the other hand I feel blessed when I can find a woman who will share a beer or a glass of scotch with me over our braised lamb. For my part, wine is only a means to an end and the end justifies the means. Thus, my general sentiment at this time is that WOW from top to bottom should be run by women.
November 1st, 2010 at 3:18:01 PM
Ms, Kostrzewa, you say it “shocks me how many stories of gender traditionalism I still hear from women in all walks of the wine industry.” I wish you had brought up specific discussions or comments you have heard illustrating this because I’m really not sure if the inequities (or “put-downs”) you have been bearing witness to really did occur, or if you are just disparaging members of the wine industry just for the sake of the usual journalistic sensationalism.
You see, as both a restaurateur and wine journalist, I have been communicating with winemakers, industry executives, sommeliers, wine writers, marketers, et al. on a daily basis for over thirty years. Sure, there were a lot less women involved in these sub-industries ten, twenty, thirty years ago than there are now. But it’s been a long, long time (in fact, I can’t remember the last time) since I’ve heard a male say negative things about women in the industry. Quite the opposite: when sommeliers talk about other sommeliers, when winemakers talk about other winemakers, when retailers talk about other retailers, or when wine journalists talk about other wine journalists in situations where it happens to be a male talking about a female, invariably it’s with great respect, even awe. It’s no secret, of course, that to be a woman in male dominated industries you have to be really, really good at what you do — hence, the usual awe with which men in the wine industry talk about their women colleagues. It’s the same kind of respect, in fact, accorded when men talk about other men who are really, really good at what they do.
In the few cases in which I’ve heard men talk about women from a somewhat critical perspective, it really has nothing to do with gender bias, but everything to do with the fact that there is a disagreement on the way things are done. And disagreements happen between everyone (between men and men, women and women, etc.).
People involved in wine related industries are invariably the kindest, most tolerant and inclusive that I know, which is why I’ve been doing this for so long. I love wine, and I love the people involved in it as professionals. If there’s an “old boys club” still lingering around, perhaps it’s because I’ve been hanging around a different crowd than you have. Otherwise, I’m just not seeing it.
But thanks for letting me put in my two cents!
November 1st, 2010 at 3:27:49 PM
Hi Randy! I agree with you 100% that the industry is tolerant, kind and friendly overall. Definitely. The last thing I would do is flippantly disparage an industry I love so much, and I hoped that I made it very clear that I feel positive about the change happening on many fronts. I have blogged on this topic in the past and have always hoped to be clear that the majority of men and women in the wine industry are open to evolution. As for examples of the opposite, I certainly could give them (both my own experiences and the many that have been privately shared with me), but calling anyone out specifically might not be terribly constructive. I just think given some of the comments above by women and responding to my other blogs that there is still some growing to be done. I am not suggesting this is worse in the wine industry than any other. It’s just that I can only really comment on this one as it’s the one in which I work. Thanks for your thoughtful response and insight!
November 1st, 2010 at 3:38:31 PM
Of course, I meant to say that you could be more specific without specifically naming names or even giving hints about whom you are speaking of. Until you do, I remain unconvinced simply because I’m not seeing it. Maybe it’s because I’m terribly naive or dense. Maybe it’s because I’m a minority myself (Asia-Pacific descent), and so people don’t talk like this around me. But when all you primarily hear are things like, “she’s an incredible talent” or “what an amazing professional,” you tend to think the opposite: women may still be a minority in these industries, but those who are are accorded with requisite respect.
November 13th, 2010 at 12:57:40 AM
As a “multi-fer” (a multi-racial female) who has worked in various aspects of the industry (production, retail, restaurant and special events) on both coasts and now living abroad in both asia and europe, unsurprisingly, i see things through a largely geographic and thus, cultural perspective. the west coast “trumps” (sorry donald) all. cases of being denied opportunities because one would be a distraction to the other workers, or too weak to lift stuff (despite being an amateur athlete), let alone being physically “man-handled” and even worse, attacked (fortunately, not myself but unfortunately witness to a fellow female co-worker), it’s the only place where one is treated as a “full human” full-stop.
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December 3rd, 2010 at 2:00:04 AM
Hi.. Susan.. very nice topic.. I am feeling proud to say that women are taking interest in wine and wine making. Women are now running wine business at home as well as in market… I hope that it will bring new era to the world of wine..