They’ve beaten breathtaking sexism – and the French at their own game. Raise a glass to the women putting the fizz into English wine
HOURS after this photoshoot last week, Cherie Spriggs walked on stage at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel to pick up the Sparkling Winemaker of the Year award.
As she raised the coveted accolade, she made history: not only was it the first time a winemaker outside France’s Champagne region had won the industry Oscar, it was the first time it had been awarded to a woman.
‘Getting the award made me think: “Why aren’t there more women in this industry?” ’ Cherie, head winemaker at Nyetimber Vineyard in West Sussex, admitted afterwards.
‘In truth, I’m so focused on what I’m doing, I don’t think about my gender very much, but it’s a job that suits women very well. We’re good at tasting, we have a sensibility to respond to the environment and how the fruit comes in.’
Indeed, scientists earlier this year discovered that women make better wine tasters than men and yet, according to WineGB, the body for English and Welsh winemakers, women run or co-run only 11 of Britain’s top 50 wineries.
Emma Rice, head winemaker at Hattingley Valley Wines, believes male chauvinism is still in evidence today, but it’s not as bad as what some French women who worked at Hattingley have experienced at French wineries. ‘They were banned from being near the wine if they had their period. Apparently menstruating women can spoil the wine,’ laughs Emma. ‘But I think that discrimination is a generational thing and will get better.’
With all the fanfare that now surrounds English wine, it’s easy to forget that not so long ago it was the butt of cruel jokes among connoisseurs for its inferior quality.
It’s taken 30 years for English wine, notably sparkling wines, to reach a status that is on a par with the traditional white wines of France. But it is now an industry worth more than £130 million and growing. In May, Cornish vineyard Camel Valley received a royal warrant, while Chapel Down in Kent is the official supplier of British fizz to Downing Street.
Alongside Cherie’s win at the prestigious International Wine Challenge, English winemakers clinched 12 gold medals, 58 silvers and another 50 bronzes, making England one of the world’s top ten wine-producing nations.
And as the industry grows, it’s tenacious women like Cherie who are battling both the prejudice levelled at English wine and the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated industry, to bring home the awards, recognition and, most of all, the respect.
I WAS TOLD I LOOKED GREAT AND SHOULD BE A SECRETARY
EMMA RICE, 41, has been the head winemaker at Hattingley Valley Wines in Hampshire since 2008. AWARDS: 38 to date. BEST KNOWN FOR: Kings Cuvee Rose (£36, hattingleyvalley.co.uk) FIVE feet nothing, feisty and fizzing with energy, Emma Rice, twice voted Britain’s winemaker of the year, roars with laughter when she recounts what an industry veteran said when she told him her dream of being a winemaker.
‘ He said I could become a secretary to a wine merchant and that my looks and personality — rather than my brain — were my greatest assets and to use them.’
Twenty-five years later she is at the helm of Hattingley Valley in Hampshire. She declares: ‘Sexual harassment was an everyday occurrence in the restaurant industry when I joined and I’m sure plain old chauvinism is still in evidence today.’
At trade shows on the Continent, she says, conversation tends to gravitate towards her male colleagues. ‘I just keep my eyes boring into them and talk louder and louder. If that doesn’t work, I walk.’
Ten years ago, having cut her teeth at vineyards in California’s Napa Valley and Tasmania, she was asked by Simon Robinson, the owner of Hattingley Valley farm, to build him a winery.
At 31, it was her dream come true. ‘Simon heard that English soil could be good for wine, so he came to me. How great was that! Very few winemakers get to build one from scratch.’
There have been major challenges — frost, bad weather, too much rain and not enough. One year, a pump failed while chilling 6,000 litres of rose and she lost the lot.
‘It was a shock, but it was only a small part of a bigger batch. You need nerves of steel.’
I MUCK IN TO LOOK AFTER ALL THE VINES
ANNIE LINDO, 65, is joint founder and winemaker with husband Bob at Camel Valley, Cornwall, which they set up 28 years ago. They have two children Esther, 32, and Sam, 41 AWARDS: The only English winery to hold a royal warrant. BEST KNOWN FOR: Annie’s Anniversary Brut 2014 (£29.95, camelvalley.com) ANNIE and her husband, Bob, decided to start a vineyard on their small Cornish farm when he retired from the Royal Air Force in 1989. Cornwall wasn’t known for its wines then, and most of their farming neighbours thought that they had lost their minds.
Almost 30 years later, Annie and Bob have scooped more than 400 awards, are the only English winery to hold a royal warrant and produce one of the best sparkling roses in the world — Annie’s Anniversary Brut 2014, grown on a separate 5,000 hectares of the farm which Annie calls her own.
Impressively hands- on for a woman in her mid-60s, Annie insists on mucking in and tending to the vine herself.
‘I am possibly the only woman anywhere who plants and harvests her own vines,’ she says. ‘It’s hard work, but I love it.’
And while Annie and Bob are jointly responsible for everything emerging from Camel Valley, Bob admits that: ‘ No wine leaves Camel Valley without Annie’s imprimatur, she has the final say. Everything is OK’d by her.’
I’M NOT SURE MEN TOOK ME SERIOUSLY
SAM LINTER, 50, has been managing director and head winemaker at Bolney Wine Estate, West Sussex, for 23 years. Her husband Graham also works there. They have two children, Charlotte, 26, and Matt, 22.
AWARDS: Wine Producer of the Year 2012; UK Winery of the Year 2017. BEST KNOWN FOR: Bolney Bubbly (£23.99, bolneywineestate.com) and Foxhole Pinot Noir (£22.99, bolneywineestate.com) SAM LINTER knows better than most how hard it’s been to change the perception of English wine.
She was just four when her parents, Janet and Rodney Pratt, planted their first vines at Bolney Wine Estate in Sussex in 1972, making it one of the first commercial vineyards in England.
Sam grew up having to tend the vines and pick the grapes until she rebelled at 16 and went off to train as a hairdresser. But the call of the vine was too much and she returned when pregnant with her first child — and has rarely left since, save for trips abroad to extol the virtues of her wine.
When she first began making wine in her mid-20s, she was one of only three women in the English wine industry — the others were Sandy Moss, who established the Nyetimber vineyard in West Sussex in 1986, and Mary Mudd, who planted the first vines at Carter’s Winery in Essex.
The industry was dominated by much older men.
‘They were rather staid and set in their ways, but incredibly kind and treated me like a granddaughter, helping and advising me all through my training,’ says Sam.
‘I’m not sure they took me that seriously, but this is a collaborative industry. Now there is an increasing number of women, we all help each other with advice, equipment and simply listening to problems.’
These days, Sam and a small group of other female winemakers, including Cherie Spriggs from Nyetimber and Emma Rice from Hattingley Valley, meet for lunches
and dinners throughout the year to exchange notes, tips, gossip and news.
‘It’s good to share experiences as well as problems,’ she says.
All this came in useful during the treacherous winter of 2012 — the coldest and wettest since records began.
‘We had 38,000 vines and couldn’t use one of them. But you just get over it,’ says Sam. ‘ Being one of the first in the industry, we have done a lot of experiments and made a lot of mistakes so newer vineyards don’t have to. They can learn from ours.’
Fortunately, the heritage of Bolney female winemakers is assured: Sam’s 26- year- old daughter, Charlotte, has just joined the family firm.
EVEN THE WEATHER DOESN’T PUT ME OFF
CORINNE SEELEY, in her 40s, has been head winemaker at Exton Park Vineyard, Hampshire, for seven years. She has three sons. AWARDS: 28 to date. BEST KNOWN FOR: Pinot Meunier (£40, butlers-winecellar.co.uk) CORINNE SEELEY is a true anomaly. A distinguished French winemaker who decided to leave her native Bordeaux with all its heritage, history and traditions to make wine in England.
People may have thought she was mad, but two of her sons have an English father and she says: ‘I have always liked challenges and making fine wines in England with its difficult weather sounded like a good one. I have not been disappointed.’
She learned her trade at some of the world’s grandest wineries and, at 24, was recognised as one of the top winemakers of her generation. She joined Exton Park in Hampshire to take their winemaking to another level seven years ago.
Corinne’s speciality is what the French call the ‘terroir’ — the land and its soil that lends every wine its own unique character.
More than anything, she likes rolling up her sleeves and getting down and dirty with the soil.
So wedded is she to her future in the ‘terroir’ of Hampshire that last year she bottled a special blend for the graduation of her youngest son. He is just 13.
‘English wine is so young, it is like a new style in fashion and is so exciting,’ she says.
‘For me, making wine in England is not just about innovation and freedom from old ideas, it is about the future.’
THIS COUNTRY IS THE BEST PLACE FOR FIZZ
CHERIE SPRIGGS, 41, has been head winemaker at Nyetimber Vineyard in West Sussex for the past 11 years. Her husband Brad is Nyetimber’s head of marketing. AWARDS: Sparkling Winemaker of the Year 2018, plus ten gold medals in the past year. BEST KNOWN FOR: Nyetimber Classic Cuvee (£34.99, waitrose. com) and Tillington Single Vineyard (£ 95, henningswine.co.uk) CHERIE SPRIGGS’S Winemaker of the Year award was the culmination of a dream that started 17 years ago when she read about Nyetimber, then a small vineyard.
A scientist by training, Cherie developed an interest in wine while drinking — then scientifically analysing — it with her husband Brad.
Together they travelled and worked at some of the most prestigious new world vineyards in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
After reading about Nyetimber, she asked her English-born father to bring over a couple of bottles to Canada for her to taste.
‘I knew instantly what I could do with it,’ she says, but it was another ten years before she confided in Brad about her ambition to make sparkling wine in England, specifically at Nyetimber.
Her route to success has not been plain sailing.
After the wet summer of 2012, Cherie made the tough decision not to harvest the poor quality grapes, leaving them on the vine for the birds to eat.
It meant scrapping Nyetimber’s 2012 vintage of around 400,000 bottles, a reported loss of approximately £10 million of sparkling wine. But by doing so she protected the growing reputation of the vineyard.
‘You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear,’ she says now. ‘While expertise plays a large part, you have to start with great fruit.’
But, she says, thanks to the greensand and chalk soils combined with the climate, ‘nowhere else in the world has the potential to make greater sparkling wines’.