July 26: After a successful 3-part series of Top Ten Winemakers in India that was highly commended, delWine has brought out a List of Top Ten Women winemakers in India, including fruit wine and mead makers, compiled by Subhash Arora who encourages women to enter the industry to promote gender equality and wine culture in India. ; they are not ranked but are given in alphabetical order
Globally, women winemakers have had a chequered history in terms of presence and acceptance (with exceptional entrepreneurs like Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, the famous Clicquot widow who brought name and fame to Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin). We have winemakers like Gina Gallo who reigns supreme because of inheritance from her late billionaire grandfather Julio Gallo who guided her to become a winemaker. There are several impressive names like Vanya Cullen in Australia who is a world-renowned winemaker-entrepreneur. Andrea Mullineux is one of the top winemakers in South Africa who is also an entrepreneur.
But when it comes to the overall wine world, women were not taken seriously as winemakers in the previous century. This has changed significantly during the last 3-4 decades and women have shown their grit and passion to be accepted and become well-known winemakers in and beyond their own countries.
In India where the industry is still nascent, women slowly started making inroads during the last 10 years. Most of them insist they are not discriminated against, are well-educated, well- travelled and even have a few overseas vintages under their belt. Some started in the backroom as lab assistants or assistant winemakers but with their determined approach, the serious ones are climbing fast. Many already own small wineries while others have their eyes open, looking for opportunities to become entrepreneurs or take over the role as Chief Winemaker.
Fruit wines included
Since the fruit wine industry is almost as new as the (grape) wine industry, many women have turned to these wineries where the opportunities of working with new commercial projects with different fruits are endless though challenging.
Many women have now started venturing out as winemakers and are dirtying their hands in the winery. So, here it is- the list of 10 women winemakers-based on the self-certified information collected from the winemakers in alphabetical order:
Congratulations to all the 10 women winemakers selected by delWine.The selection has been based on the information received from individuals and telephonic conferences. The information given by them is presumed to be authentic-this was one factor why the ranking has not been done in the first such edition, which has been primarily to share with the readers the work being done by them. Hopefully, some of them will be a big name one day like Andrea Mullineux of South Africa, Vanya Cullen of Australia and Gina Gallo of California.
For the earlier Articles in 2 parts, you may also like to visit:
Top Ten WOMEN Indian Winemakers in India (Part-2)
Top Ten WOMEN Indian Winemakers in India (Part-1)
Subhash Arora
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