Christie’s - How Women Are Harvesting Change in the Wine Industry

Even after two decades as a female vintner, there are still some quirks about the industry that shock Lynn Penner-Ash. “I am always surprised at how many truckers don’t want a woman to offload their rigs!” says the founding winemaker of Oregon’s Penner-Ash Wine Cellars. “But the position of women in the wine industry is vastly different now than it was when I started. I remember talking to women about the path to becoming a winemaker and so often it was more of a path to working in the lab and not the cellar.”

In the 23 years since Penner-Ash’s namesake winery was founded in the heart of America’s Pinot Noir country, she’s unloaded countless trucks and seen the number of women trading in their lab coats for work boots skyrocket. Female winemakers are upending the status quo by transforming the historically exclusive industry—long dominated by white males—into a bastion of diversity and inclusivity. In fact, it wouldn’t be a challenge to fill this entire page with the names of female winemakers currently transforming the wine business as we know it.