One of the most striking phenomena of the last twenty-five years has been the feminization of the wine world. More and more women are taking over family estates or holding positions of responsibility in the wine trade. They are also making their presence felt in the sommelier and oenology professions.
In the first issue of Bourgogne Aujourd'hui, published in December 1994, the presence of women was limited to a photo taken on the occasion of the Hospices de Beaune Wine Sale. In issue no. 50, dated February 2003, eight women are on the jury of some 40 tasters, among the estates featured. They were Martine Barraud, Nathalie Saumaize and Armelle Rion, posing alongside their husbands. In June 2011, for issue no. 100, the magazine featured a short article on the tenth anniversary of the Femmes et Vins de Bourgogne association, and a dozen women are featured throughout the pages of this special vintage... Nadine Gublin, a well-known and respected oenologist in Burgundy, is one of the pioneers. Originally from the Aube region, she fell into the world of wine by chance: "After a scientific baccalaureate, I started a Maths Sup preparatory course in Reims. Seeing that I wouldn't necessarily go all the way, the principal summoned me and steered me towards studying oenology, which was in its infancy at the time. Michel Feuillat had just arrived at the Institut Universitaire de la Vigne et du Vin in Dijon, and in 1977 I decided to take the course leading to the Diplôme National d'OEnologue. There were five of us in a class of around thirty". Today, as Marielle Adrian, Director of the IUVV, explains, things have changed. "The workforce has become more feminized over time, with the proportions of girls to boys being balanced overall, although this may still vary from one year to the next in certain diplomas". In 2016, for example, two-thirds of first-year DNO students were female, and half in 2018. In the Vine Sciences bachelor's degree, male students are still in the majority, while in the Vine, Wine, Terroir master's 2 the numbers are more balanced.
A smooth evolution
After graduating in 1979, Nadine Gublin spent three years working in a laboratory in the Mâconnais region. "It was an excellent, formative school, with every possible scenario and numerous contracts in the Beaujolais and Mâconnais regions". In 1982, she joined Maison Antonin Rodet in Mercurey, which was looking for a second oenologist, and moved on to Château de Rully, before settling in 1989 in Meursault, with Jacques Prieur, where she made her first wine in 1990. Thirty years later, she still acts as consultant oenologist there, as well as for the owner's other two estates, the Labruyère family, in the Beaujolais and Champagne regions. "When I started out, there weren't many women in the wine business. On family estates, they worked alongside their husbands. It was a gradual evolution. I could have been under pressure as a woman, but I immediately loved my job and knew how to make myself available. The rest came naturally. I couldn't say whether being a woman is an advantage or a disadvantage. What I do know is that it's a job where you have to be curious, attentive and observant. Passing on knowledge is very important to me, which is why I regularly take on trainees. I respond favorably to whoever writes to me first, and it's true that there are more and more young women, some of whom are truly brilliant. The New World led the way in this direction, in the years 1990-1995. In Australia, California and South Africa, women were already well represented, and this opened the eyes of the Old World, which followed suit a little before the 2000s".
A thoughtful choice
In April 2018, we gave the floor to three women winemakers, members of the Femmes et Vin de Bourgogne association, created in 2000 and now chaired by Nathalie Fèvre, a winemaker in Chablis, recently joined by her daughter Julie on the family estate. Sophie Cinier, Lorraine Senard and Virginie Taupenot confide that their profession is one they have chosen, without being forced into it. In Lorraine Senard's family, her father was the only male and had only one son. "It was a foregone conclusion that my brother would take over the estate, except that when he was 18, he left. That's when I started thinking about it. Sophie Cinier owes her passion for wine to her maternal grandfather. "He was a real character, who shared many things with his seven grandchildren. There are five of us working in wine today, so you could say we fell into the pot, like Obelix! I love being in the vineyard and I'm also enjoying making wine more and more. My father was a craftsman and my mother worked with him. When he stopped working, she came to the vineyard with me a lot. She taught me how to work, just as her father had done with her when she was young. The Femmes et Vins de Bourgogne association took some time to find its place in the wine world. "At first, there was some jeering, like 'Oh, there's the MLF of wine being created', but little by little recognition came," recalls Virginie Taupenot. "In 2010, the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin asked us to do a presentation for their Roses chapter. They trusted us, without asking to reread our speech". "We simply want recognition of our place and our work in an environment that was not originally feminine", Sophie Cinier explains.
An ambitious young generation
The feminization of the winegrowing profession has accelerated with the arrival of a new generation. While women were already at the helm of some very fine estates in the 2000s (Alexandrine Roy at Gevrey, Marie-Laure and Marie-Anne Bouzereau at Meursault, Ludivine Griveau at Corton-André before joining Domaine des Hospices de Beaune in 2015, and many others), the under-30s are now arriving in force: Amandine Renaud at Solutré-Pouilly, Clarisse and Anne-France Ramonet at Chassagne-Montrachet, Mathilde Grivot at Vosne-Romanée, Aurélie Cheveau at Pouilly, the latter even now president of the Pouilly-Fuissé cru, and so on. All have a solid background. This is particularly true of Amélie Berthaut, from Fixin, who embodies the young Burgundian generation at the helm of many family estates, having built up her experience during internships abroad. However, the young woman was not destined to become a winemaker. She studied agronomy, opted for the oenology option, and finally got her foot in the door during an internship in Bandol, at a winery run by a woman. After a DNO in Bordeaux and internships in California and New Zealand, she settled in Fixin in 2013. Based in Marsannay, Isabelle Collotte always knew she would be a winemaker. "I was an only child for seven years and I always followed in my father's footsteps. After secondary school, it was obvious that I would go to the Lycée Viticole in Beaune". Women also hold positions of responsibility in larger structures, such as Véronique Drouhin, Francine Picard, Nathalie Boisset and Ève Faiveley. Proof that the place of women in the world of Burgundy wines continues to grow is provided by the Foire aux Vins de la Cave des Climats in Paris, which at the end of September was dedicated... to Burgundy women winemakers! "Since the beginning of the Climats adventure, we've been lucky enough to meet some wonderful women winemakers in Burgundy who know how to bring out the full subtlety of their terroirs," explain Denis Jamet and Carole Colin, owners of the Climats restaurant and cellar in Paris's 7th arrondissement. "In this still largely male-dominated world, we wanted to highlight their work and talent every year, by dedicating our Wine Fair to them".
First MOF
Let's push back the gates of Burgundy a little, to salute a woman, Pascaline Lepeltier, the first woman to be elected Meilleur Ouvrier de France in the fall of 2018. In 2016, while working at the Racines restaurant in New York, she decided to enter the competition. She began intensive training, which lasted two years. It's the diploma that interested me the most, because it goes way beyond learned technicality; it also talks a lot about transmission", confided the young woman in the columns of the women's magazine Glamour. She has never felt that being a woman sommelier was a problem. "The problem of a lack of female representation exists, but it's structural, not particularly linked to the world of wine", she explains. "Like everywhere else, there are far fewer of us to make it to the top of a company. The same goes for competitions, which require a lot of time and personal investment. This is an area where the sommellerie still needs to make progress. In Burgundy, as elsewhere, the trend towards feminization is well and truly underway. In conclusion, let's salute the recent creation of an association, bringing together a dozen young women winemakers: Mi-filles Mi-raisins. Under the slogan "discreet but not secret", they intend to promote lesser-known appellations.
Environment
With 23.4% of the region's vineyards certified or in conversion, Burgundy-Franche-Comté is one of the winegrowing regions most committed to organic farming. However, behind this progression, the figures for 2024 show a clear slowdown in conversions: after ten years of continuous growth, organic viticulture is entering a phase of stabilization.
Techniques, vines and wines
Hillside viticulture imposes extraordinary working conditions. And when you add the choice of organic viticulture, the equation becomes even more complicated. Two major challenges arise. On the one hand, grass management, without chemical weedkillers, and on the other, disease management, with contact products to be renewed regularly. As a result, the [...]
Estates and Houses
With Thomas Bouley, once we'd got past the cordial welcome exchanges, our meeting immediately began with a tour of the vineyard bordering the estate. We exchanged views on pruning, took a handful of soil samples to illustrate that the soil is well aerated, alive and not compacted, and talked more generally about agronomy, our top priority [...].
