As my career progressed and my wine knowledge increased, my collection has grown in both quantity and quality, and I now have enough wine from around the world to share with friends well into my dotage. Of course, being in the wine industry is a boon, but observing that very few of my female friends have been bitten by the wine bug, I can’t help but wonder why collecting wine is still such a male-dominated arena.
Collector Aileen Daly feels ‘it’s not a wine problem but a society problem – the person who buys the wine is the person who earns the money’ – and that is still, mostly, men. Having studied engineering and forged a career in the City, Daly is comfortable around wine and used to holding her own in male-dominated environments, but admits even she can feel intimidated and in the minority at tastings and dinners. The next generation of wine drinkers sees this gender bias, too; Sophie Wass, 23, tells me the family joke that her father is always handed the wine list when they go out for dinner. ‘He doesn’t drink.’
I brought the subject up at one of our bi-monthly Private Cellar Women in Wine gatherings and was naively surprised to learn that many women still feel that buying wine is a ‘blue job’ – one for the boys; and while women are comfortable managing the household budget, spending on wine for the future isn’t a consideration. Claire Brown, a trained lawyer, told me: ‘Women don’t find the word “collecting” attractive. It’s seen as a very masculine pastime – cars, watches, stamps, wine – and is confused with “investing” in wine to make a profit.’
All of this indicates the trade needs to work much harder to communicate with female buyers – something that consumer-collector Queena Wong agrees with. ‘We need to create friendlier spaces for women to share and enjoy wine and learn in an environment where no question is deemed stupid,’ she says. ‘We need accessible BYOB prices, more opportunities to buy by the glass, to open up wine allocations and to champion female sommeliers.’ This is something that Wong does through her Curious Vines program.
As I write, Maria Boumpa of Michelin two-star Da Terra restaurant has just been voted IWSC UK Sommelier of the Year and there are so many more female role models in the industry, from journalists to winemakers and savvy wine advisors. With few exceptions, though, this isn’t converting to sales of fine wine to women. So how do we break this barrier and see more women build cellars?
With the traditional route to wine collecting being via male business networks, knowledge being passed from father to son, access to fine wine in clubs in St James’s, and so on, we need to change the rhetoric. Female-only events are not always attractive to women with high levels of disposable income, who are often time-poor, prioritising friends and family. But travel is a key entry point – Daly says that ‘it makes every holiday so much more fun when you visit wine regions you have in your collection’.
Try better wines by the glass; share your favourite bottles and discoveries with friends; get to know women in the trade and other female collectors. ‘Find a good BYOB restaurant,’ advises Daly, ‘as wine is so overpriced in restaurants and often not exciting.’ She also recommends buying everyday wine as you need it and only storing smarter cases, given the expense of storage. Buy wines with varying drinking dates and don’t forget about the New World: a future cellar doesn’t have to be made up of the traditional Bordeaux, Burgundy and Barolo.
Buy the best wines you enjoy, have fun building up a cellar, and you will be rewarded with delicious, mature bottles to share in the future.
In my glass this month
I have known Alvaro Palacios for more than 25 years, but it was only last year that I finally made it to Priorat and I was blown away by the sheer beauty of the Catalonian wine region. From my own collection, bought on release, his Finca Dofí 2016 (£64.78 Lay & Wheeler) is bang in the middle of its drinking window, showing beautiful fresh Garnacha fruit, impressive concentration and a long, elegant finish.
