A Month of Women in Wine, and Sophie Chardon

Posted 03/01/2008 at 11:37 AM by Cathy

Last December I worked the holiday rush at the Beverly Wine & Beer Co., which meant I did very glamorous things like price bottles, restock shelves, and rotate inventory. But I was also on the sales floor for hours at a time, which meant I fielded questions from typical customers and got to know what people were thinking about when they were thinking about buying wine.

Many of them wanted “a nice for bottle for under $25” for their office holiday party’s Yankee Swap. Some of them were looking for a gift for a niece or nephew who were just getting to know wine. Some of them wanted the sleekest bottle that just came in from the hippest producer. And then some of them wanted a wine that was made by a woman winemaker.

Now there’s an interesting question. Fortunately the Beverly Wine & Beer Co. offers several such wines so I could always send the customer off with a few of the bottles they were looking for. But it’s a question I’ve returned to over and over since then.

I’ve asked distributors, “What wines do you sell that were made by a woman winemaker?” and they tell me about servers from different restaurants who have been asked that question by their own customers. Servers need to know, in order to pass the information on to their diners who want to know.

I’ve asked servers the same question – “What wines do you have that were made by a woman winemaker?” – and they can normally point to several on their list. Lobby Bar & Kitchen on Broad Street in Boston, for example, lists wines by Mount Veeder and Franciscan. A sommelier at Sel de la Terre poured me a glass of sparkling wine from New Zealand made at Lindauer by Julia O’Connell.

And I’ve asked salespeople in wine shops, just like I was asked last December, “What wines do you sell that were made by a woman winemaker?” and I’ve been pointed to everything from Spottswoode to Crios. Carri Wroblewski, co-owner of Brix Wine Shop in Boston, also gave me some suggestions beyond her own shelves, including Ghislaine Barthod from Burgundy.

Closer to home, at Chicama Vineyards on Martha’s Vineyard, Lynn Hoeft is the current winemaker. She is the daughter of co-founder Catherine Mathiesen, who grew up in Napa Valley. Julie Johnson, who went to college at Bowdoin, is now making wine with her husband at Tres Sabores winery in Rutherford.

The growing number of women in the wine industry – and the growing interest in their work – is a trend to watch. For every day in March, in honor of Women’s History Month, I’ll spotlight a woman winemaker and put a real face to the name of the experience of women in today’s winemaking industry.

This afternoon the Beverly Wine & Beer Co. poured four bottles, two of them by Sophie and Thierry Chardon. Sophie’s grandmother owned property on the Cher, a tributary of the Loire river, and in 1996 Sophie and Thierry expanded that property and founded their winery. Ten years later, in 2006, they harvested Sauvignon Blanc grapes that became Le Touraine Blanc (Domaine de l’Aumonier), a wine that’s referenced worldwide as an exceptional value for its high quality. Normally it retails for less than $15, yet it manages to successfully integrate New World intensity with Old World class.

The third bottle that Beverly Wine & Beer Co. poured today for their tasting was the newly-released 2006 Layer Cake Primitivo. (In a word, it’s phenomenal. Kurt Reming only got two cases in the store and they’re going fast.) Winemaker Jayson Woodbridge said the wine pays homage to Dr. Carole Meredith, a geneticist at UC Davis, who pioneered the use of DNA typing between vinis vinfera grape varieties. She proved during her research in Croatia that Primitivo is identical to Zinfandel.

Today Meredith is retired from academic work and grows Syrah grapes in Napa with her husband under the Lagier Meredith label.

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