Book Review: Women of the Vine
Women buy more wine than men in the United States, but men dominate the upper echelons of the wine industry. Think of writers, wine makers, and sommeliers in your internal registry. Most of them, no doubt, are men. But you'll add a few women to that list after reading Deborah Brenner's Women of the Vine. The book's 20 profiles make the point that some of the most influential industry leaders are women, and that blatant sexism is a thing of the past. Customers no longer refuse to buy Château Potelle's wines because a woman, Marketta Formeaux, makes them. Restaurant diners no longer pause when a female sommelier walks up to the table, as they did when Andrea Robinson worked at Windows on the World. Enology schools no longer host hiring days and tell women students that the companies won't hire them, as they did when Merry Edwards went to UC Davis. At least, I hope not.
Brenner offers some inspiring portraits, but the choice of subjects mystifies me. Where is Jancis Robinson? Or European wine makers such as Austria's Heidi Schröck, still working in a traditional culture ripe with sexual stereotypes? The book's subtitle mentions "the world of women who make, taste, and enjoy wine," but Brenner seems to think that that world ends at the state boundaries of California. Even so, where is Karen MacNeil, director of the Culinary Institute of America's wine studies program, author of The Wine Bible—which I heard one editor describe as "a genre buster"—and a woman who holds fierce opinions about the treatment that women face in the wine industry? Where is Helen Turley, one of the most sought-after wine consultants in the state? Anyone in California can probably add their own Missing Persons reports. Brenner no doubt faced tough choices about whom to include and whom to cut, but do we need two profiles of women from the Gallo dynasty? I get the sense that Brenner chose women that would be easy for her to meet.
This take-the-easy-road approach also shapes the stories that Brenner chose to tell. These profiles will look good in the publicity packets handed out to future writers, but they lack depth that would give a full portrait of each subject. In a book whose theme is the rise above sexism, Brenner should have questioned Wine Adventure publisher Michele Ostrove as she explained her "for women" audience: "One thing we say is that women share information, whereas men look at it more competitively. It's kind of one-upmanship for them." And then: "They want to know how to go traveling to wine country and where they should go and where they should stay and what place has the best spas." But Brenner lets these sexual-stereotype marketing decisions skim past, even though Wine Adventure's "for women" slant was a last-minute tactic change from an egalitarian "for everyone" approach (a point barely mentioned in the profile). How about asking Stephanie Browne, founder of Divas Uncorked, about the double prejudice heaped on African-American women? How is she treated in restaurants now versus twenty years ago?
And if my inner reader looked for answers that never appeared, my inner editor found more than enough to keep it occupied. "Show, don't tell!" I kept shrieking in my head, the same phrase my own editors have sent back to me on more than one occasion. Of Stephanie Putnam, wine maker for Far Niente, Brenner writes, "Stephanie has always been the take-action type and loves outdoor and physically challenging hobbies." Show her being a take-action type. Use a quote from Putnam about loving wine making because it keeps her outdoors more. Of Merry Edwards, wine maker for her own winery, Brenner notes, "Merry was indignant and rightfully so. The notion that a company would discriminate against an entire gender was outrageous." She follows it with Edwards's own quote about her reaction, which would have sufficed to describe the outrage and would have made her passion and fury more immediate, rather than trailing after a screeching halt in the text.
I think there's an interesting story to be told about women in the wine industry. It would use the industry as a lens into the changes brought about by second-wave feminists throughout the country. It would discuss the way that modern young women take their rights and opportunities for granted. It would discuss the role of women wine makers in European cultures, and how that differs from the American model. It would look at the shift in men's attitudes; what men used to refuse to buy wine made by a woman, and what made them change their mind? It would weave the narratives of these women together to look at the big picture of what happened.
It would not be a series of puff pieces that leave more questions than answers. It would not be Women of the Vine.
This book was sent to me as a review copy.
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