Sun, May 9, 2021 7:00 AM

Women of wine

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Staff reporter

Larger numbers of women are seeking careers in the wine industry and are now dominating spaces in the viticulture classroom. So, what’s the appeal of the grape? Tracy Neal reports.

A fascination with nature is a fundamental trait for anyone wanting to enter the wine industry, says one of its younger members.

Sophie Allan is part of the family-owned and operated organic Huia Vineyards in Marlborough’s Rapaura.

The 24-year-old has integrated a commerce and arts degree into her role in the winery’s cellar and in helping to guide the biodynamic and ethics approach to how they run the vineyard.

“I was raised here, but you could say my education is tacit. I didn’t study viticulture or oenology (study of wines), I just grew up learning how to apply different experiences.”

Sophie is among a growing number of women who in recent years have joined the industry, which has evolved to create more opportunities for women.

New Zealand’s “First Lady” of wine, Jane Hunter, says she is amazed at how many are now working in the industry.

“When I started you could count on one hand the number of females in the wine industry. Now, women can be in any part of it, and they just seem to do it – young women with children, it amazes me how they cope with it.”

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24-year-old Sophie Allan is part of the family-owned and operated organic Huia Vineyards in Marlborough's Rapaura. Photo: Tracy Neal.

In 2013 Jane was the first woman inducted into the New Zealand Wine Hall of Fame, and her contribution to the Marlborough wine industry earned her a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. It followed an OBE in 1993 for services to viticulture and she was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2009.

Jane, who is the managing director of Hunter’s Wines Marlborough says the growth in numbers of women now working in winegrowing and winemaking has occurred within one generation.

“The industry has grown too, but it’s great so many women are joining it. I think they bring a different viewpoint to it also. They do business differently to men, and in the way they deal with people, such as staff, in that we approach things slightly differently.”

The growth has been helped in part by more educational opportunities.

Since 1991 the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology has been delivering viticulture and winemaking programmes through its Marlborough campus - the heart of the country’s largest wine producing region.

Marlborough has more than 100 wineries, more than 550 independent growers and is the seat of 77 per cent of the country’s total wine production.

NMIT marketing services coordinator Charlotte Goodman says more women are entering the industry, judging by enrolments to its programmes.

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The wine industry industry can offer a range of fantastic careers. Photo: Tracy Neal.

Figures show that three years ago, 61 of the 127 total student intake were female. The following year more than half the 131 enrolments were women. In 2020 – the Year of Covid, there were 133 students on the course, of which 59 were female.

So far this year, women made up 46 places of the total 106 enrolled.

Charlotte says the figures include international students, who predominantly remained in New Zealand to find work.

They and other foreign workers, still here on extended visas, formed a vital part of the workforce for this year’s vintage, says the head of industry-owned Wine Marlborough.

Marcus Pickens says a cold snap late last year as the fruit was setting has led to reduced volumes, compared to last year’s spectacular vintage. In 2020 the district crushed 343,000 tonnes of Marlborough grapes – that was 77.7 per cent of New Zealand’s total production, and despite a potentially disastrous vintage, which started just as lockdown struck. Steps were taken immediately to accommodate harvest crews under strict Covid rules, so picking could continue.

Marcus says workers who remained in the country from the previous vintage, and good immigration settings allowed wineries to re-employ staff this season.

“They took out a few hundred places, and we had a really good response from other backpackers still in New Zealand, and Kiwis also came to the fore.

“It still wasn’t the exact labour force we needed but Covid is a unique situation and we had to take whoever we could get, train them up and the wineries have done that really well.”

An NMIT lecturer in winemaking and viticulture, Ngarita Warden says there might be a long-held view that the industry is male-dominated, but in her view, New Zealand’s wine industry thrives on equality.

“New Zealand has always been progressive in that regard. As far as my own career is concerned, I’ve never felt women are disadvantaged, but I have worked in other countries where the view was that women shouldn’t be seen in the winery, they were great at marketing and selling wine but in the wineries – no.

“New Zealand has definitely been much more progressive in terms of equality in the winery, for sure.”

Ngarita, who has a science degree in microbiology and immunology, and who then studied winemaking at Lincoln University, says while the industry offers an equal playing field, she does have some sage words of advice to anyone with romantic notions of eternally sunny days, and convivial days among the vines.

“The romantic idea of wine is probably out there but then the reality is often quite different.

“The vineyard and the winery are hard physical work, and it definitely attracts a certain type of woman.”

Jane Hunter says her advice to young women thinking of a career in wine is to be patient, not be afraid to ask questions, and to take advice from those who know.

“A lot of women have now done this before, and if you’re at all uncertain as I was when I took over the best thing to do is to seek out some wise souls, ask questions and heed their advice.”

Ngarita says once you understand the reality of the industry, it can offer a range of fantastic careers.

“Regardless of your skill base, you’re probably going to be able to use it in wine. If you love the product, it’s a great industry. There are so many aspects to it, you’ve got grape growing and wine making and then you’ve got branding, marketing, all your label designs, and graphic design.

“You can do so much travel with it (post-Covid), work in so many locations and make so many different styles of wine, but the reality is, it’s hard work.”

Ngarita agrees it pays to do a bit of homework before embarking on a career in wine.

“Go and talk to women viticulturists and that way you’ll get a good feeling for what’s involved, what the work is actually like, what the pay is like – all the realities of working in the industry from a women’s perspective.

For Sophie, the drawcard was the teamwork involved in making a product that humans have been making for thousands of years – possibly up to 5000 years Before Christ.

“You’re working with an entire ecosystem. You’re working with a craft that’s been evolving for such a long time throughout human history, and which is really is a core pillar of so many cultures.

“I consider it a really exciting mode of human connection.”

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