YOUNG women everywhere can take inspiration from others who battle with, and triumph over, the usual gender-based challenges in their field.

Strathbogie Ranges local Tegan Clydesdale is one such contender and considers her journey to be like a great wine vintage.

“It has been shaped by time, challenges, and the incredible people around me,” Ms Clydesdale told an International Women’s Day afternoon tea in Avenel on Friday, 7 March.

Ms Clydesdale is now winemaker at Fowles Wine in the Strathbogie Ranges and was one of three guest speakers at the event which welcomed 120 women to celebrate the world-wide day that recognises women.

Photographer and film maker Alexandrena Parker and member for Euroa Annabelle Cleeland – with young Sigrid on hip – were also speakers at the event, with all three sharing different paths in finding a work-life balance in a world that still has gender-based barriers.

Despite motherhood being the most rewarding experience of Ms Clydesdale's life, she said it has challenged her to balance her very successful career aspirations – already having won ‘more than a couple of dozen’ medals – with raising two little boys.

Ms Clydesdale began her vocation in oenology in 2008, from which she took a break only three years into, to raise her children before returning full time four years later.

To really fill out her week, she decided in 2017 to enrol in a Bachelor of Wine Science at Charles Sturt University.

Ms Clydesdale was determined to plough her life into the work-study-parenting trifecta she had carved out from a passion that seems to extend outside her vocation and into the rest of her rather full life.

“It was one of the hardest things I've ever done,” she said.

“Countless late nights, early mornings, and moments of doubt; but I pushed through because I was determined to create a future for myself and my boys."

That 'pushing through' was evident when this correspondent visited the Fowles laboratory on Friday, interrupting the staff's late lunch barbecue.

Their star winemaker, now on the front lines with refractometer in hand to start keeping an eye on the sugar levels in the fattening grapes, is clobbered up more appropriately - boots, hair up, a touch of sun - for a quick tour of the lab with its valley views before she bounds off again to prep' for this year's vintage.

As expected, both sons are avid sportsmen, but mum is allowed some time playing social netball which has just ended its season in time for the upcoming harvest.

"My weekends tend to consist of kid’s sports."

Her study at Charles Sturt University included up to eight nights in a row on the Wagga Wagga campus for course ‘intensives’ which was another challenge for her parenting that she met admirably.

This lifestyle of her choosing was then topped when ‘in the middle of it all’ she became a single mother.

“There were a lot of tough days, but I kept going because my boys were watching, and I wanted to show them that no matter what life throws at you, you make it work.”

Then COVID came, adding home-schooling to her routine, but as an essential services worker, her boys accompanied her to the lab, with her setting them up with their schoolwork while she got on with hers.

“Between pump-overs (spraying fermented wine back over skins) and lab work, checking on their lessons, helping with maths problems one minute, and jumping back into winemaking the next, we made it work.”

Ms Clydesdale was then promoted to assistant winemaker at Fowles before graduating with her bachelor’s degree in 2022.

In an industry where women are still in the minority, her promotion to winemaker in 2023 was not without its poignancy, and despite the wineglass ceiling having already been broken by pioneering women, she said all of her mentors were male.

“One thing is that there are actually not that many women in the industry – it is male dominated.

"But over the past 16 years, I've watched the number of women steadily grow, and I'd like to think I've played a part in that."

She is not critical of these circumstances, instead focusing on the support she had from the Fowles family in mentorship, care, and with providing income.

“Working for a family in a winery made all the difference.

“They understood the challenges and supported me through it,” she said.

"The industry has tested me in ways I never expected, but I wouldn't change a thing."

Ms Clydesdale sees the new appointment as profound enough to suggest that leadership in winemaking has nothing to do with gender, having instead everything to do with determined success in front of an audience of two young gentlemen.

“I've worked hard to show them that passion and perseverance can go hand-in-hand with family.”

That itself is an achievement well above any collection of medals.