Wine Words: Women in Wine

Throughout the long, grueling months leading up to the presidential election, coast-to-coast we’ve been inundated with news of women in politics and gendered stereotypes of those in power. Fortunately, the wine industry is far more progressive, with many women having broken the glass ceiling throughout the past decades. Contributions of women in Sonoma County wine have been significant, as these visionaries continue to shape our world of wine.
No need to look any further than the heads of the Sonoma County grower and vintner organizations. With Karissa Kruse as president of the Wine Grape Commission, growers have put a stake in the soil with their commitment to make Sonoma the first county in our nation to be 100 percent sustainable as a winegrowing region by 2019. Their specific goal for 2016 is to strengthen our community with focus on healthcare, affordable housing, childcare and education. (I’ll report back in January with the success of these efforts.)
Jean Arnold-Sessions, the new executive director of the Sonoma County Vintners trade group, recognizes the importance of community outreach connecting wineries, government officials and the community at large. Both Karissa and Jean understand the necessity of ongoing communication to ensure a seamless dialogue between community and leaders of our most profitable business, wine, which impacts us all in one way or another.
As mentioned in an earlier column, Simi Winery has an impressive history of leadership by women. Isabelle Simi Haigh became one of the few women winery owners in the world in 1904. Mary Ann Graf then took the helm, becoming the first woman winemaker formally trained in viticulture and enology. As president of Simi Winery from 1989 to 1996, enologist and vintner Zelma Long was the first woman to assume senior management of a Californian winery. Zelma, an academic, founded and was the first president of the American Vineyard Foun­dation, which financed re­search in enology and viticulture. She also founded the American Viticulture and Enology Research Network (AVERN).
It’s not just winemakers and heads of associations who evolve our industry with intelligence, savvy and analytical thinking complemented by a woman’s intuition. Eva Bertran has guided the Spanish-owned Gloria Ferrer in Sonoma for almost 30 years. In Spain, as in other European countries, entre­preneurial women take the lead, and the Ferrer family has a rich tradition of trusting their women to forge ahead in managing business.
I’d be remiss in writing a story about women in wine without mentioning winemaker Cathy Corison. Of the many vintners I’ve represented over the years, it was Cathy for whom every media person I contacted for market visits would change plans, if necessary, for an opportunity to meet her and taste her balanced and elegant Napa Valley Cabs made from organic grapes.
Back to this side of the hill with grand dame Helen Bacigalupi, who with her husband Charles, purchased 121 acres on Westside Road in 1956. The family vineyard gained recognition during the 1976 Paris Tasting when the 1973 Chardonnay from Château Montelena, made with 40 percent Bacigalupi fruit, triumphed over many acclaimed French wines. This event was the turning point in America’s global wine image. Helen now proudly encourages her twin granddaughters in their efforts with the family winery.
There are countless women in Sonoma who are the inspirations for their companies in leading the industry and shaping the landscape of wine. Barbara Banke, chairman and proprietor of Jackson Family Wines, is a prominent example with her international family-owned business. The late Saralee McClelland Kunde greatly influenced her colleagues with the respect she held for her workers and education she fostered in hosting arguably the first comparative tastings with vintners who purchased her grapes.
But back to Hillary Clinton and our missed opportunity. I still imagine what it might have been like to have a woman lead our country with a woman’s heart. Perhaps because she was so harshly trained for decades to be a woman in a man’s world, she abandoned the feminine voice that might have actually led her to victory. We probably would have heard this voice more strongly had she succeeded in becoming the most powerful leader in the world.
Relevance for today: In this time of giving thanks, I am most grateful for the many capable and open-hearted women in wine who lead us each and every day.
Marie Gewirtz represents wine and food clients with marketing and communications in Sonoma County and throughout the world.