Wine courses and women

I wonder if the really great writers have spells of creative aridity? I was certainly square in the middle of an extended drought, barely able even to split an infinitive as I am wont to occasionally do, when the phone rang.

It was Eric Page, then the wine columnist for the Melbourne Herald, experiencing a similar set of circumstances. Apparently the rolling juggernaut that is the Australian wine industry had come to a standstill. That didn’t help Eric, who had words to write.

He asked me about the wine courses I run in Melbourne. What was coming up? Anything nice to drink? Anyone bothering to show? You know, the usual sort of thing. Then he asked me exactly what sort of person would pay good money to sip from my bucket of knowledge.

I told him the truth. Mostly women. Well, around about two-thirds, anyway. Just to make it sound more exciting, I think I told him eighty-percent. Aware he could be onto something, Eric then asked what sort of women they were. What I told him correlated with the truth – to the same measure at least. Mostly professional, sophisticated and well-educated, I said. And single…

Sounding distinctly more inquisitive, Eric then wanted to know their approximate ages. In retrospect, my answer was a shade ambitious, for I estimated mainly between twenty and thirty-five. With a final “Good Lord!”, Eric rang off, his journalistic thirst apparently sated for the time being.

I didn’t think any more of the conversation until about two Wednesdays later when the phone began to ring again. It’s not often I receive five different calls from five different males wishing to book just single places into my Introduction to Wine. Then it clicked. The Herald comes out on Wednesdays, so I flew downstairs and borrowed a copy.

There, amid Eric Page’s whimsical scattering of wine fact and fiction, was a boldly-typed line that went something like “‘Women Want to Know More About Wine Than Men’, says Jeremy Oliver, who says the wine courses he runs are largely filled by attractive young single women”.

I wonder where he got the ‘attractive’ from? Journalistic licence, I suppose. Anyway, it helped fill the course. But the upshot really came when I was pestered for weeks afterwards by an over-zealous representative of Singles magazine, who tried vainly to persuade me into embarking on what to my measly finances appeared like a major advertising campaign. Imagine it. “What Wine goes with What Woman? The Wine Course with More.” Way out of line!

Yet, ‘neath these curious circumstances is an indisputable reality. The time will soon come, if it hasn’t already, that women will know more about wine than men. So what? So I’ll tell you. In something like wine, beleaguered for so long by bombastics and bores, the overwhelming majority of which have been male, that’s a remarkable thing.

Women and wine? We shouldn’t be surprised any more. Not only do women drink it; they market it, promote it, write about it and even make it. Today we even have exclusively female wine societies! There is a whole new generation of wine buffs, snobs and bores – a healthy percentage of which are female. It’s no longer just the host you have to be wary of at a well-washed dinner party, but the hostess as well! Women are no longer meant to drink silently. I just hope they suffer the same way the next morning. That’s what I call equality.

Suspicions have long been held, but have since been heartily disproved, that women are unable to ‘hold’ wine as well as us men. In a seventeenth-century erudition entitled the Art and Mystery of the Vintners and Vine Coopers 1675, the writer records, presumably from experience, that the sweetened wine of the time offends the head and stomach, and torments the guts of men, but is apt “to cause looseness and some say bareness in women”. My memories of winery tours as a student of Roseworthy College are that most of the resultant ‘bareness’ was contained fairly and squarely to the scholars of the male gender. The women present appeared to handle the stuff rather better.

One of the reasons why women know more about wine than ever is that they buy most wine in Australia. They’re making most of the decisions – the Seppelt, the Lindemans or that little vineyard with the funny name in some remote corner of Western Australia?

As far as I can see, the real truth is that women appear to take more of a no-nonsense approach with wine. They’re less likely to taste some new libation and immediately feel compelled to spout forth about what sort of French oak the winemaker used and what a wonderful thing extended maceration is; or whatever it was that Hugo said so impressively at the last Beefsteak and Burgundy luncheon.

Women are more likely to say what wine tastes like and whether they like it or not. They’ll mention flavours, foods, scents, spices and that sort of thing. I feel less likely to be threatened with verbal assault and battery if I bump into a woman at a wine tasting.

Delatite’s winemaker Rosalind Ritchie agrees, saying that the women she meets at her winery’s cellar door know more about wine than they used to, and generally know what they’re talking about. “They are more confident and more definite in their likes and dislikes than ever before”, she says, “but they’re not interested in showing off. Women tend just to get on with the job.”

Ritchie suggests that a female upbringing may be of genuine help in becoming accustomed to analysing the many tastes and flavours in wine, for they are frequently brought up to appreciate the tastes and smells experienced in the traditional areas of the kitchen and the garden, “even if have since been emancipated from all that”, she adds.

Women have made a huge impact in Australian wine. The contributions made by the women winemakers such as the largely un-sung and totally professional Pam Dunsford of Wynns, the consistent Ursula Pridham of Marienberg and the innovative Di Cullen of Cullens’ Willyabrup Estate will live on through the newer brigade of Rosalind Ritchie, consultant winemaker Jan Macintosh, and Vanya Cullen, also of Cullens’. Vivienne Ritchie of Delatite, Christine Fyffe of Yarra Burn and others play a prominent role in the affairs of the Victorian wine industry.

Ultimately there is no inherent advantage or disadvantage facing women with wine, says Rosalind Ritchie. “In any aspect from the consumer to the taster, the grower and the winemaker, women aren’t at a disadvantage in any way. Perhaps the only problem is that far too many women simply don’t know these options exist, but I suspect that’s the case for men as well.”

Women are finding out more about wine because they are better educated than before, it is now as acceptable for women to be seen to drink in public as men, they go out and are entertained more, and today there are many more sophisticated women in the modern business world who are becoming more interested in food and wine. The boom in small brewery and imported beers has seen precisely the same result with that beverage. As Rosalind Ritchie says, “women now choose to drink wine with food instead of the mandatory glass of sherry before a meal and cup of tea with it.”

Many of the best wine sales representatives are women, and some, like Christine Turner of Rosemount, have become the State Managers of significant wine companies. It is only a matter of time before a women takes a major executive position in one of the dominant Australian wineries.

Women now pull rank amongst the most respected wine writers around the world. Modern English heavies like Serena Sutcliffe and Jancis Robinson can make or break a wine company with the best of them. Women have really arrived in wine with clout.

Having said this, are there attitudes that could perhaps be changed? Well, if you work as a wine waiter, you might have to contemplate proffering the wine list to the hitherto unexpected gender. If you own a bottle shop, think twice before trying to bluff the next female into an extra bottle of New Zealand red. She probably knows better.

And if you’re just an average sort of a wine drinker who boasts, however, to pick the north slopes from the south by a wine’s smell at twenty paces, you could be in for an awful shock. But remember, if you want to go to a wine course, you might still be in for a happy surprise!

When Lord Byron insisted on wine and women, mirth and laughter, I’ll bet he didn’t count on the women choosing the wine for him. But that’s how much times have changed. Please login to post comment