I was lucky enough to attend the Women In Wine Leadership Symposium hosted by The Winebow Group and Cornerstone PR today. This is the sixth edition of this lovely event and my second time attending. I was very pleased to be included these past two years. We had the good fortune to have Jancis Robinson as the lead interviewee of the day and Laura Catena as the interviewer. In addition to these two illustrious women, we also tasted wines from well-known women run wineries in Champagne, Burgundy and Tuscany as well as a host of wines from the Winebow portfolio as part of the walk-around tasting that followed the event.

What I love about days like today is taking stock and thinking about topics that are bigger than my everyday focus on my clients and Vigneto’s bottom line. Today we discussed strategies to be more inclusive in the work place in terms of gender and minorities and to be a better mentor. How women need not just mentors but sponsors in their lives and how we all need to think how we can help younger generations of women.

I also found it interesting that many of the women on the panels today said that they tend to stay away from events billed as for or about women in wine. Many said that they didn’t want their gender to be the factor that people focused on. I understand that and have had similar responses when I ask people to write one of my women in wine columns. Yet, they also noted that there was still much work to be done in order to promote women, especially in terms of the pay gap between men and women in this industry and others. I am not yet sure what the balance is in terms of women in wine as a topic. I think about this often and have had a longer project about it in the works for a while. That said, being in the room with a group of women in the wine industry still gives me a kick and makes me happy. I am glad to see the tent is growing and that there are a growing number of divergent voices from all parts of the industry. I hope the discussions will continue.