Girls are Talking

Okay, so, Peter warned me that winemaking was a boy’s game. He said he didn’t “really agree” with the way things were, but that was just how it is. He told me that in like, 2003, and I still remember it to this day. I remember just thinking, “Ha-ha, well, tough shit. This ought to be fun!”

The Finger Lakes are kind of a bad sampling with regard to this phenomenon. Wineries there usually have WOMEN in them. At least one or two as cellar hands or something else. So, there’s always at least a double XX in the room to even things out.

Such is NOT the case in Australia. I walked into the winery at CSU for the first time and I saw 5 cellar staff. Can you guess how many of them were female? Yep. ZERO. Mel is the ONLY girl that works at her winery that doesn’t wear heels to work everyday. Many many wineries here are testosterone party sessions.

There are very few women in the internal Wine Science program at CSU. Two in one year, two in the other year. Not many compared to the number of men. We make up maybe ten percent? We’re an awesome bunch too. One girl, Shell, came back to study internally after completing her vintage early. She is a very well dressed, stylish girl…very feminine. A lovely girl. When I first met her, I had trouble imagining her in boots at a winery. Then she extended her hand and I saw what is currently marring my hands: her fingernails were stained with red wine. If not dipped in the correct chemicals, these stains can hang on for a quite a bit. It struck me as cool that she could live in this dichotomy, essentially. Girly and lovely by night and living in a male dominated world all day. Mel does the same thing…she looks lovely anytime she’s out of the winery, but can hold her own with pumps and hoses, presses and crushers.

So, I’ll undoubtedly living in this dichotomy. But, that’s what we do: we’re women. We wear many hats, and all at the same time….oh, and, we wear them well! Friend, mother, sister, mentor, wife. We do it all.

Winemaking is all about multitasking and time management. Maybe, just maybe, we’re way better at it then the boys, but we’re just beginning to be discovered.


Cheers