Ten wonderful wines from female winemakers

It is International Women’s Day on Monday, so what better time to celebrate with some great wines made by women winemakers from around the world. Like vegan or organic wines, as I wrote recently, what was only a few years ago something to highlight and celebrate is now, rightfully, more commonplace. It is impossible to list, say, the 10 best women winemakers any more than it is relevant to list simply the ten best vegan wines, since they are both now so numerous. And neither is it an absolute guarantee of quality, nor is it possible to identify a common style among wines made by women. So, below is merely a diverse selection of great wines, which happen to be made by women. But it is worth remembering, when we raise a glass to these women, that their success must be seen as part of the broader achievements of women achieving long-overdue equality in areas that are traditionally male-dominated, and that it is not that long ago that menstruating women were sometimes forbidden to enter wineries because of the effect they might have on the wine… I think we have moved on a bit from that. 

First then to France, and one of the founding figures of the champagne industry: Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, otherwise known as Madame Clicquot, who in 1805, at the age of just 27, took over her late husband’s business which she revolutionised. She introduced techniques now commonplace, such as ‘riddling’, which speeds up the clarification process, and created the first ever single vintage champagne and the first rose champagne. The Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label NV  (£36.00 sainsburys.co.uk; £42.00 clos19.com) is a fine example of the classic dry champagne style, first made in 1877 specifically for British palates. Other champagne houses, including Pommery, Bollinger and Laurent-Perrier, also had pioneering and strong women involved in winemaking in the early years. But champagne is not the only sparkling wine in France, and down in the Limoux in Languedoc-Roussillon, winemaker Marie Toussaint makes wines for the Les Grand Chais de France, one of the biggest national producers of sparkling cremant. Her Cremant de Limoux Brut Tholomies La Baume NV (£11.75 winepoole.co.uk) is a lightly refreshing blend of mainly chardonnay with chenin blanc and pinot noir, and a great everyday sparkler – try it with tempura prawns as a canape.

Elsewhere in the region, redoubtable Englishwoman Katie Jones, who moved to the region in 2008, makes terrific award-winning wines from scrappy plots of land in the Maury and Fitou appellations, absolutely true to their terroir and grapes; the Wine Society has a good selection including the ripe and full-bodied Fitou Domaine Jones 2018 (£16.50 thewinesociety.com), a blend of carignan and grenache that is exactly what you need to accompany a hearty casserole on a cold night; just beware the 14.5 ABV. While Jones is a relative newcomer to winemaking, Clare Clavel’s family have been making wine since 1640 and she now runs the family domaine, situated in one of the less well known Rhone Valley villages, on largely organic and biodynamic sustainable principles. Clavel is a member of the Femmes Vignes Rhone Association, which brings together women involved in the important regional wine industry. Her Clavel ‘Syrius’ Cotes du Rhone Villages St Gervais 2017 (£10.99 akeandhumphris.co.uk) is a smoothly powerful blend of 70pc grenache and 30pc syrah, packed with ripe black fruits, and is just fantastic value for money, with all the heft and finesse of Rhone wines more than twice the price. Again, one for big casseroles or roast lamb. 

Another woman with a long family history in wine is Jessica Saurwein, whose European ancestors were once said to have made ‘sour’ wine for the Austrian emperor; now, after a viticulture degree and working in wine marketing, she makes pinot noir and riesling from small plots in the Elgin region in South Africa. Her Chi Riesling Jessica Saurwein 2020 (£24.00 shop.rickstein.com; swig.co.uk) has gorgeously floral aromas, with rounded, fresh, slightly zesty citrus flavours, and is quite definitely not sour. A lovely wine (with an attractive label – it helps) which goes particularly well with fish, especially with oriental flavours. Also in South Africa is Ginny Povall, from New York, a self-taught winemaker who settled in the Devon Valley in Stellenbosch in 2009, originally to farm protea flowers for export, but then began planting vines and producing organic wines under the Botanica label. The Botanic Arboretum Red 2017 (£26.99 thewinereserve.co.uk) is a smooth, velvety, cabernet sauvignon-dominated Bordeaux-style blend with dark plum and black cherry flavours, with some earthier underpinnings. Look out for her chenin blanc and albarino, too.  

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But it is not just about women ploughing individual furrows with small operations. Women are making it in the bigger corporates as well. In California, the substantial Jackson Family Wines business is run by Barbara R Banke, who co-founded the company with her late husband and has run it alone since his death in 2011; she has employed women winemakers in three of their divisions, including Jill Russell, who leads an all-female winemaking team at the Cambria estate in Santa Barbara, and whose inaugural vintage of Cambria’s Katherine’s Vineyard Chardonnay 2017( £19.99 simplywinesdirect.uk; £21.50 winedirect.co.uk) has already been justly celebrated: a lovely wine that strikes a perfect balance between weight, oak, citrus, refreshing stone-fruit flavours and hints of spice. Way down in South America, Laura Principiano is head of winemaking at the large Zuccardi concern, based in Mendoza in Argentina. While many automatically think of malbec here, she also makes a great  chardonnay, the Zuccardi Apelacion Chardonnay 2018 (£14.90 fieldandfawcett.co.uk; £14.95 cheerswinemerchants.co.uk) which, like Cambria’s, maintains a lovely balance in the grapes sourced from high-altitude vineyards in the Uco Valley, with vibrant citrus fruits and some spicy vanilla to the fore. Over on the other side of the Pacific, in New Zealand, Natalie Christensen is the chief winemaker at the Yealands Wine Group, based in Marlborough, and has degrees in science and music as well as oenology. And while their sauvignon blanc and their pinot noir are justly celebrated, try her Yealands Reserve Gruner Veltliner 2020 (£12.99 waitrose.com) which has characteristic gruner savoury notes of white pepper, a hint of spice and smoke, and a lifting thread of citrus acidity.  

Finally, Australia, which has its share of female winemakers. Debbie Lauritz, after 10 years in the business, was appointed in 2019 as winemaker in New South Wales for Robert Oatley Vineyards, one of the biggest brands in Australian winemaking – although still very much a family company. Working for the renowned head of winemaking Larry Cherubino, she produces classic Aussie reds such as the Robert Oatley Signature Series Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 (£12.99 cambridgewine.com;  £13.99 tauruswines.co.uk) full of black fruits, tar, hints of tobacco and eucalyptus: the perfect wine for a midweek steak. And just another terrific wine that happens to be made by a woman – and I’m sure Madame Clicquot would be proud of her.