"Wine Law and Policy: Women and Femininity" according to Juliane Vernaudon MIHM's student

Juliane Vernaudon, Master's student in International Hospitality Management, shares us her interview with Vitisphère, following the publication of her dissertation "Wine Law and Policy: Women and Femininity" prepared last year when she was a second year Master's student in wine growing and wine law at the University of Bordeaux.

"You started from the observation that women made up three quarters of the most recent cohorts of the Masters 2 programme in wine growing and wine law, leading to you raising the question of the relationship between women and the wine industry. While stressing that "none of [your] fellow students would ever dream of writing about the singular situation that men occupy in the sector".

Juliane Vernaudon: I discovered a lot of tiny things, details, during our visits to the Bordeaux and Cognac regions. In the small estates, you can still sense that the winegrowers are very attached to their land and that their spouses are left to work on the administration and communications side of things. During the war years, it was quite interesting to see that these women had demonstrated the same skills as the absent men. They could develop these skills if they were given the opportunity.

At one time, women even prohibited themselves from going near the product. There is no longer this taboo. Even if it has not yet totally happened, the feminisation of the wine sector is on the right track. Except in the vocabulary of wine. I am always surprised during my training courses to hear about ‘feminine wines’... "

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