The Fabulous Ladies’ Wine Society founder Jane Thomson
Don’t let the name – The Fabulous Ladies’ Wine Society – fool you, says its founder. These women are serious about their mission.
JUST the name alone — The Fabulous Ladies’ Wine Society — paints a colourful picture.
Gal pals, a happy chardonnay or three, and a very long lunch.
But don’t let the name fool you, says society founder Jane Thomson.
“The name is meant to be tongue in cheek,” Jane says.
“I want people to think about it and be surprised when they learn it’s about women who love having fun, but are serious about wine.
“I didn’t want just a networking, social event group … I wanted to create change.”
If change is what Jane hoped for when she created the society back in 2012, then change is what she got.
The Fabulous Ladies’ Wine Society now has about 20,000 members — about 5 per cent of whom are blokes — as well as about 75 wineries around the nation, all of which have women in key roles, from chief executive to winemaker.
Normally the society hosts about 30 wine events each year, as well as tours here and overseas.
But probably the biggest force for change was the creation in 2015 of the annual Australian Women in Wine Awards, the world’s only awards platform for women in wine.
This year’s awards will be an online event.
Wine Australia, the peak industry body, took the event to the UK in 2017, and to the US in 2019.
“I created the awards to help address gender discrimination in the wine industry, to provide an opportunity to showcase and speak about the success of women in the industry that would otherwise not be told, to shine the spotlight on what women are doing and how well they’re doing it,” Jane says.
“In the first year or two there was resistance, from both men and women, with women saying they don’t need special treatment.
“Positive discrimination shouldn’t be needed but we internalise messages. Ultimately the awards have started a conversation where we talk about issues not discussed before.”
Jane says the awards are about highlighting the difficulties women face in a traditionally blokey industry.
“We have reached parity in graduates, it’s about 50/50 women in viticulture and oenology.
“Within a few years those numbers plummet and we’re not sure why, with little data available.”
According to research, 67 per cent of women in the wine industry have experienced sexism, 18 per cent believe they do not have equal career advancement opportunities and one in four have experienced unfair treatment over issues around pregnancy, child care and maternity leave.
“Talk about talent drain,” says Jane, who admits this drain is not unique to wine across agricultural sectors.
Owner of 919 Wines in South Australia’s Riverland, Jenny Semmler (pictured), was one of the early winners of the Australian Women in Wine Awards in 2016. Jenny started in the wine industry in 1984, after completing a winemaking degree in Wagga Wagga.
“Winning the award was an endorsement of our work, helping open up new markets for our business — even recently in Scandinavia,” Jenny says. “It’s also given me fabulous connections to other women in the industry.”
She says in those early years she encountered sexism, especially from banks, but since running her own winery, she is her own boss.
Jane, who lives on a 40ha cattle and pecan farm in the Byron Bay hinterland, has been a wine columnist at taste.com.au for seven years.
She says there has been progress in recent years, including the creation of a diversity and equality protocol by the Australian Grape and Wine Authority, which she helped compile.
She says the awards, initially supposed to run for five years, “are a tool to move forward but I don’t think it’s a tool that has blunted yet”.
Award entries open August 4, with the winners announced November 24.
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