They didn’t come to just talk about their wines.
Three of Strathbogie Shire’s prized winemakers instead found a synergy to celebrate when they joined over 100 women outside of Nagambie to share their journeys as rural women making their mark in the wine industry.
Rural Women's Day (RWD) was celebrated in style over a luncheon on Friday 17 October at the new Morningside function centre at Wahring.
The day also had wine tasting from three local vineyards after each of their winemakers gave speeches on the importance of women supporting each other through their journeys.
The keynote address from Laura Benbow of Apiary Made in Trawool was about juggling her varied career path with motherhood, inspiring the audience with describing the choices she had encountered over the years.
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Ms Benbow said that every single decision made within her business was intentional, such as collaborating with women producers across regional Victoria and with indigenous artists and communities for one of its products.
"We are able to give back directly, creating a circle of creativity, respect, and trade," Ms Benbow said.
"Everything matters, because integrity matters, and part of that integrity is about giving back."
Narelle King from Nagambie’s Tar and Roses winery said she wanted to cut a long story short, but struggled to because – as the audience soon discovered – the journey to her first vintage had all the romance of a wanderer fighting off a career she never really liked.
Narelle has been making wine for the last 20 years, starting out as a city girl accountant with dreams of bean-counting glory.
“I had this sort of fantasy that I was going to be, you know, a stock market kind of high finance kind of person,” she said.
Instead she found herself escaping the gloom of a London winter to South America with a girlfriend, where a chance encounter with a female winemaker at an Ecuadorian café changed it all.
“That was really inspiring; it just got me thinking.”
Sarah Gough spoke about how the first grapes she sold from Box Grove Vineyard were measured in imperial land area, with some of her first buyers wanting 25 acres (10 hectares) at a time.
“I still talk in acres, sorry,” she said.
Her career too moved in twists and turns; but being listed among Halliday’s ten ‘dark horse’ wineries in Australia punctuates her journey’s destination.
She shrugs it off: there is so much more to talk about.
She said she fell into winemaking ‘vicariously’, due to her grandmother being a country woman and her cousins turning a wool farm into a goat cheese dairy when the bottom fell out of the wool market.
“We had a lot of lessons about resilience and using tough conditions to reposition yourself over the years,” she said.
“And I always had my feet in the dirt and worked with the rhythm of the seasons.”
She went straight into studying wine out of school, because she loved her French teacher and learned all about food and cooking.
After a miserable year at Melbourne University, she found work at a wine shop where the owner gave her a little push into destiny.
“He said ‘you’ve got a real feel for this – you should go and study winemaking'.”
She enrolled at South Australia’s Roseworthy College where a key insight was the ‘fashion industry’ side of wine.
“Things can come in and out of favour and learning to read the tea leaves a bit and be ahead of the pack is terribly important, otherwise you're floundering away.”
After the GFC, when she lost all her buyers, she cashed in on that philosophy and grafted her vineyard over to more popular Italian varieties – a few acres at a time.
An equally as challenging approach to a career was that taken by Fowles Wine’s Tegan Clydesdale (The Euroa Gazette, 19 March) with the modest thirty-something-year-old avoiding attention, preferring to stay behind the scenes.
“Or in the lab, or the winery, or deep in vintage, rather than behind the microphone,” she said.
“But I've come to understand that sharing my story has value, especially if it helps others see what's possible.”
Clydesdale has not come from a winemaking past but has sure made it her present and her future.
As a technician in Fowles’ winery, she became curious about winemaking then suddenly determined she was ready to learn.
“Once I stepped into the world of wine, I was hooked,” she said.
Then the curve balls began, starting with motherhood in 2011 (two boys), a decision to balance that new life with full time work (with aplomb), and suddenly becoming a single mother, but not before throwing one more ball into the air.
“I enrolled in a Bachelor of Wine Science, so was now at full-time work, part-time study, two small boys at home – it was intense.”
Doubts, some tears, and ‘way too many’ study sessions at 2am were topped by COVID lockdown and so as a sudden home-school teacher she balanced that year’s vintage with Year three maths.
It all paid off after her graduation in 2022 with her being appointed Fowles Wine’s first female wine maker.
“Life doesn't always move in straight lines,” she said.
One woman on the day was up at 4:30am armed with head torch and chainsaw, collecting fresh foliage for the event’s enormous floral displays.
Co-host Krystie Holley said collegiality also spread to her expertise in floristry with two other ‘competing’ florists helping install the arrangements.
“We are not really competitive, we get around each other – it’s a community,” Ms Holley said.
Her own story of moving to Nagambie after a ‘hard time in life’ was the seed for her involvement with RWD.
She established the indoor plant and florist shop Botanic House in Nagambie seven years ago and now propagates her own flowers.
“It was a bit of a career change from food scientist – I love nature and plants and I needed a change of life.
“But it was really hard to meet new people having two children – how do you build healthy relationships with people who have a common interest and people who face the same challenges as you?
“So, it’s important to me to collaborate with community and uplift other women.
“I have really appreciated those who have uplifted me and supported me.”
Gough talked about collegiality, with other winemakers sharing ideas.
“I think I've learnt to surround myself with good people in marketing, in winemaking, in the vineyard, and to listen to them.
“Sometimes I don't listen, but I'm trying."
Tegan Clydesdale defined the roles of her sisters-in-vintage as an effective leadership ‘regardless of gender’.
“Winemaking is often romanticised, but in reality it's dirty, exhausting, and incredibly demanding," she said.
“And yet I love it – I love the magic of watching fruit become something extraordinary.”
Narelle King feels the same: “I love the idea of growing something, making something, and then being able to share that product with your friends over a very communal kind of meal.”
