Women in Wine

Inspirational Leaders

Winemaking remains a profession that is, to a great extent, still dominated by men. Female winemakers have been a blind spot of the wine industry for a long time.

However, in recent years, we’ve met and heard stories of astounding women producing breathtaking wines across the world. The Findlater & Co portfolio is proud to be the home of female winemakers that are making waves in the wine industry.

Women in Wine

Róisín Curley

Mayo native Róisín Curley is a winemaker and one of 414 Masters of Wine in the world. She also has an MSc in Viticulture and Oenology.

Róisín helped in winemaking at such illustrious names as Chateau Latour in Bordeaux, where she worked specifically on their biodynamic project, before finding her true love of terroir expression in Burgundy. In 2015 she established her micro négociant-vinificateur business, Maison Róisín Curley. She operates out of a tiny cellar space in Beaune and currently crafts very small quantities of high-quality wines, preferably from organically grown fruit. Her wines have found a receptive audience in her home country and further afield in markets such as Canada and China.

Mireia Torres Maczassek

Mireia Torres Maczassek is a prominent figure in the wine industry, born in Barcelona in 1969, and is the fifth generation of the Torres family. She is the director of two prestigious wineries, Jean Leon and Torres Priorat, and has played a significant role in the family’s winemaking projects.

Mireia inherited her father’s sense of responsibility and her mother’s artistic and bohemian spirit, which has helped shape her creative outlook on life. She graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering and studied Enology and Viticulture in France before joining the family business in 1999. Mireia is the director of Familia Torres’s Knowledge and Innovation Department and the president of the Familia Torres Foundation.

Her professional career has been dedicated to research in the field of winemaking and winegrowing. Mireia’s passion for wine has been with her since childhood, and she continues to make a significant impact on the wine industry.

Laura Brunelli

When Gianni Brunelli passed away in 2008 his family winery and their restaurant “Osteria Le Logge” were entrusted to his wife, Laura. Laura is a native of the island of Sardinia and from the western province of Oristano famous for its flor-influenced Vernaccia wines.

If wines look like their owners then the wines of Gianni Brunelli perfectly show the character of Laura – pretty & kind, generous to newcomers and with an underlying power and strength that allows huge longevity.

Laura farms 2ha of land on the north of Montalcino “Le Chiuse de Sotto” and 4.5ha at “Podernovone” on the south of Montalcino at 500m of altitude. This land is farmed organically with over 400 hours of labour per hectare required annually to maintain. Laura does this with a small team while keeping the cult restaurant in Siena as one of the must visit restaurants in Tuscany.

Sue Hodder

Sue Hodder, winemaker at Wynns of Coonawarra, is one of the most respected winemaker’s in the Australian wine industry and a strong advocate and voice for Coonawarra and single region winemaking. Sue began her career as viticulturalist and she believes her early viticultural training – assessing vines, analysing mature fruit and tasting the finished wine – gave her an invaluable insight into the importance of the vineyard in quality winemaking.

Sue joined Wynns as a senior winemaker in 1998. She brought valuable experience with vintages in other noted wine regions around the world and has judged extensively in regional, national and international wine shows.

“I’m proud of the responsibility I have for maintaining the quality of a range that represents Coonawarra as a region as much as they represent Wynns Coonawarra Estate….. It relates to being a custodian of a great winemaking tradition. ”Sue has a had a long-term involvement with the Coonawarra Vignerons Association including four years as President and is currently on the Marketing and Promotions committee.

In 2010, Sue was one of 10 Australian Winemakers selected to represent Wine Australia in the Launch of the A+ programme at the Shanghai World Expo. Sue has proudly represented Wynns, Coonawarra and Australian wine around the world by telling the stories around their wines.

Myriam Ambuzer

Myriam Ambuzer, the winemaker of Lyrarakis Wines Estate since 2002, has played a huge role in securing Lyrarakis a place in the elite wineries of Greece. Myriam graduated from Athens University, Department of Oenology and Technology of Beverage, and accumulated a wealth of experience as an educator in oenology at the MBS College of Crete. Before joining Lyrarakis Wines Estate in 2002, Myriam worked with the famed Spanish winemaker Pepe Mendoza, who gave her a baptism of fire and taught her that winemaking is a passion-driven occupation and that harvesting is both an act of love and a battle for life.

Upon joining the Lyrarakis family as quality control manager of winemaking, her focus was directed towards representing the power of the Cretan terroir by producing wine using indigenous grape varieties. She helped the Lyrarakis family save two grapes from extinction; Plytó, a lively ancient white variety, and Dafni, that produces a white wine redolent of bay leaf. Myriam’s work in the cellar has facilitated the recognition of these classic wines beyond the shores of Crete and right into the glasses of worldwide consumers.

Her philosophy is entrenched in expressing authenticity in wine and achieving harmony without resorting to a recipe book, arguing that every grape and every wine needs to be worked on and created in its own special way, every year. “There are no standard recipes, and they might change according to the vintage,” Myriam says. “The wines all have an identifiable ‘trace’ of the varietal, which is coloured by the vintage’s particularities.” Vilana is Myriam Ambuzer’s signature wine and is fermented in the estate’s barrels.