Women in Wine - Conversations with our favourite female wine makers.

Written by Alexandra Brooks

In honour of International Women’s Day and Women’s History month, Super 8 have been pouring exclusively wine made by female winemakers. In the process, they have shown just what women can achieve in the business and raised ￡15,296 for London-based women’s charity Solace. For the whole of March, each restaurant showcased a selection of wines from over 35 of the most exciting female winemakers from across Europe. Women in Wine is a collaborative project devised by the women of Super 8. They are a team of female artists, sommeliers, writers and photographers who are championing women in hospitality and their multifaceted skillsets. ?

The Solace Women's Aid project is a homage to women everywhere, which is why we used the project to encourage a donation of ￡1 per bill to London - based women’s charity Solace. It supports all women experiencing issues related to domestic violence and other forms of abuse including sexual, psychological and financial trauma. Solace is London’s largest women’s charity helping 25,000 people a year. Its media and communications manager, Roz Wyllie believes, “support for women and girls is massively underfunded and under prioritised by the government.” ?“IWD is a brilliant opportunity for businesses and charities to champion women” she says. ?“It's been fantastic to have Super 8 Restaurants onboard, donating ￡1 from every bill - I'm sure it will reach wider audiences and hopefully raise awareness for women who might be going through abuse or for women who would be interested in helping the charity or finding out more about us or working with or volunteering at some point."? ?

Victoria Torres Pecis

One of the contributing winemakers is Victoria Torres Pecis, from the Canary Islands, whose wines we recently poured for one night at Kiln. She is the first woman to take charge of her family’s Bodega since it was founded on the island of La Palma in 1885. Not that she intended to be; winemaking was never in Viki’s career plan after she left the small Spanish island to study ad pursue a career in art. It was only when her father’s health began deteriorating in 2015, that she was drawn to the family business. A decade on she has made a formidable name for herself. Unlike many other big names in the industry Viki has never worked for other winemakers, networked on the international scene, or studied enology or viticulture. While her wine making heritage certainly helped, she is guided by curiosity and passion. “Being a woman, I had so much freedom” she says. ?Nobody's watching you, nobody is expecting anything. I had creative freedom from the beginning because people had no expectations of me.” Viki’s vast knowledge of local soil, climate, vines and agriculture is comes through in her wines. You can taste the volcanic soil, salty winds, island topography and precision of her talented hands. As the only winemaker exporting produce from La Palma, she is considered a pioneer in her craft regardless of her gender.

In the face of the challenges posed by such a patriarchal industry, the advice Viki has for women starting out in the wine world is: “follow your passion without fears, don't pay attention to differences in the barriers that you might find. It's just that our situation is harder, as it is for all people making things for the first time you need to break standards.” Kiln sold out of all Viki’s wines during her event at the end of February. None was more popular than her Las Migas 2018. It is made of Listan Blanco grapes, a white variety widely grown in Spain and South Africa, they are best known for use in the manufacture of sherry. The grapes are harvested slowly over a period of three months and then slowly fermented and aged for two years. On the nose Las Migas has a notes of wildflowers, honey, citrus and summer hay. On the palate, you can taste the salty air and sunny island it is from.

?Nu?ria Avin?o

Nu?ria Avin?o is the only child and daughter of Manel Avin?o who has been producing wine in Catalonia, Spain, under the name Clos Lentiscus since 2002. They come from a family of winemakers who have grown vines in the region since the 17th?century.? At just 24 she is a trailblazer for the next generation of winemakers. She began making wine at 16 for a school project. This made her fall in love with the family business and go on to produce her own series of pet-nats named after her. In Nu?ria’s family “it is very common to plant muscat vines when a girl is born because it a very feminine, perfume like grape”, so it was only natural that her wines are all made naturally and biodynamically mostly using Muscat grapes. Though Nu?ria is certainly making a mark as a female winemaker in a family well established in the industry, she wasn’t the first. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), her two great aunts took over the running of the operation when their brother, Nuria’s great grandfather, was away fighting. However, being a woman in such a male dominated industry poses a number of challenges. Nu?ria believes a significant number of the problems faced by women in the wine world are related to appearance. She says, “sometimes you want to be a little bit more glammed up and you wear makeup or have

nails done but because it’s a man’s industry, its own community people dislike you for being more feminine.”

“Sometimes I like to wear something a bit revealing to but that doesn't mean that I'm not smart enough to make wine. Although problems rooted in sexism will most likely continue to exist in the wine world for a long time to come Nu?ria says, “there's a lot of young female winemakers, we are following each other. There's a big community growing, which is so cool. And I think that we're coming together as a generation of young female winemakers”. Nu?ria believes that you can feel and taste the feminine energy in the wine she makes not only because of the delicate flavours of Muscat grapes but also because “women are very precise, I think that we're looking for that kind of specific flavour, delicate or funky or special, whatever it is we want it to stand out.” At this early stage of her already very successful Nu?ria says, “I am exploring my womanhood through winemaking, meeting new people, travelling, eating crazy stuff, it's like a new movement and now is the beginning.” ?

?Stefanie Renner

The Renner family have been growing vines and making wines in Gols, East Austria near the bank of the largest endorheic lake in Central Europe, Lake Neusiedl since 1988. Stephanie’s parents?Helmuth and Birgit never pressured their three children, Susanne, Stefanie and Georg, to take over the family business. They all went to Vienna to study and work but around 10 years ago the daughters returned to their hometown with a newfound fascination with wine. The two eldest siblings began making wine following their parents organic and biodynamic practice, under the name Rennersistas in 2014. Since then, Susanne, Stefanie’s sister took a step down to raise her children with Claus Preisinger and their brother Georg has joined the business. The winery is now called Renner and Rennersistas. We have been pouring the Renner and Rennersistas Superglizter 2021, which is a is a red wine made from a blend of indigenous varieties: Blaufra?nkisch, Ro?sler, St. Laurent and Zweigelt. It is light in colour but is packed with notes of ripe, tart berries, making it both a staff and customer favourite. Superglitzer is a young, zippy and energetic wine - an easy drinker and perfect for a barbecue in the sunshine.

When they started out as two young women making wine Stefanie said that?“we received some nice attention because we are women, people were encouraging but, it also annoyed us because we thought, is this the only reason why we get the attention or is it because our wine are also good?” She would also “much rather have the opportunity to just stand next to my colleagues no matter what gender no matter what age and just be seen as a winemaker person does her job. And not always is this idea that oh, for a woman she does her job really good”. Stefanie is currently expecting her first child and since becoming pregnant has become aware of so many practical issues faced by working women and mothers. She believes “women are very strong in general, having children and menstruating is so physically exhausting you cannot do the same jobs as men, particularly on the vineyard, picking grapes and moving barrels.” In this industry there are many “Women supporting women, and I think it's becoming more important and accessible to network.’ There are more “females being female lead, so that's great. That's really exciting.” ?????

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There are so many other inspiring women working across the wine world who deserve articles of their own. But for now it is just a huge thank you to our suppliers Ancestral, Modal, Tutto and ?Beattie & Roberts and all the amazing women who work for them and have supported us in this project.

Challenging male dominated spaces is the collective aim of everyone involved in 'Women in Wine' and to do so in honour of a charity supporting women in need seems the perfect way to commemorate International Women's Day.

It has been a pleasure to speak to Viki, Nuria and Stefanie, hear their stories and share them with you. As I am sure you will all agree it has been an honour to drink and pour theirs and all the other female winemakers' wines. It is certainly an exciting time to be a woman in wine and the hospitality industry as a whole. We can't wait to see what the future holds, after all, the future is female!

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