I’m just going to say it… It’s hard being a millennial woman in the wine industry.
Not only is everything a woman does always under a microscope, but being young is just the cherry on top. Especially in the wine industry. The wine industry is predominantly male. And what’s worse is that a lot of the men in the industry are wine snobs.
When a young woman talks about wine, these men come out from the shadows to tell us that the wine we’re drinking is bad or that we’re only on Instagram to look pretty or giving unwanted advice on how to run our accounts or blogs. What they don’t realize is that we’re the generation that grew up using technology. If anyone is going to make wine a growing industry again, it’s the young women on Instagram. We know how social media works and we probably figured out how to create a website faster than a middle-aged wine snob could press the publish button on theirs.
Young, millennial women know how to create content whether it’s on social media or on their own blogs that encourages the younger generation to get into wine. That generation follows us because we make wine easy for them to understand. We give them reasons to want to spend $30 on a bottle of wine, which is what the middle-aged white men have been trying to figure out for YEARS. What they’ve been trying to do for years, we’ve figured out in minutes. It’s almost like young women are changing the industry completely.
Wine is for EVERYONE (of drinking age of course). Wine is supposed to be something that brings people together. There is no place for snobbery in the wine world and that’s one of the reasons I love the subject so much. I’m not an expert on wine. I’ve said this many times before. I know a lot, but I still learn new things everyday. The beautiful thing is that no one knows everything about wine.
I experience more snobbery online and in tasting rooms than I do at my actual job. In fact, I’ve never experienced snobbery at my job because we are all so passionate about wine. If I ever get something wrong, my coworkers are there to correct me and vice versa.
One of the things that bugs me about tasting rooms is that the people working there judge you the minute you walk in. I cannot even begin to count how many tasting room associates have “warned” me that the wines they serve are not sweet. If I wanted sweet wine, I’d save my $25 tasting fee and purchase a cheap bottle of Barefoot Moscato. This happens to me about 65% of the time.
It’s getting tiring correcting snobby associates and middle-aged men who want to butt into my conversations to say, “This wine goes well with food don’t judge it on how dry it is.” First of all, I’ll judge a wine on whatever criteria I want to and second of all, DID I ASK?
I will continue to learn as much about wine as I possibly can. I have a right to be in this industry just as much as any Master Sommelier does. We contribute to the wine industry in different ways. Honestly, there’s enough room for everyone. And by everyone, I mean beginners too.
If you’re going to take away anything from my little rant, it should be that wine is for everyone. I’ll say it a million times if I have to. If you don’t think you belong in the wine community because you don’t know anything, the fact is that you do belong. The first step of learning about wine is being interested in it and drinking it for other reasons than to “get drunk.” (I’m looking at you study abroad group). The wine community is full of wonderful people who are willing to teach you things about wine and in terms that you can understand.
Thanks for reading!
