The Vintner Project: The Rising Stars in Turkish Wine Are Women
I am thrilled that I was able to put together a piece about some of the amazing women in Turkish Wine for The Vintner Project around Women’s History Month. This is a story I have been wanting to tell for a while now and I am so grateful that The Vintner Project gave me a platform to do it.
The Rising Stars in Turkish Wine Are Women
In what is globally a male-dominated industry, Turkey emerges as an exceptional place to have a strong cade of women in the wine industry. Over a quarter of Turkey’s wineries employ women in a country where only about two in five working age women are in the labor force at all. Women here are winery owners, winemakers, educators, sales managers, and sommeliers. In addition, almost all those who work the harvests are women. Only women are trusted to show up and do the often-grueling job of harvesting. Men are known merely to sit around all day and drink tea!
When asked if they face problems in the industry stemming from being women, the responses here were overwhelmingly no. They must deal with many issues: making and promoting an alcoholic beverage in an increasingly conservative country and being Turkish in a sector that reveres foreign consultants. But these are challenges that confront both women and men here in Turkey.
So, who are these exceptional women?
Click to Read More of my piece on The Vintner Project!