Greece has a long wine history and a contemporary wine sector built around small-scale production, distinctive regions, indigenous grape varieties, wine tourism and a broad ecosystem of growers, wineries, hospitality actors, distributors, educators and communicators. It is not a large-volume wine power in the same sense as Italy or Spain, but it is a complex and culturally important wine country where prevention must travel through many small and locally rooted actors.

The public evidence base shows both the importance and the fragmentation of the sector. OIV data report around 93,000 hectares of total vineyard surface in Greece in 2025, while Greek sector sources identify approximately 64,000 hectares of vineyards intended for wine production. The difference is important: it reflects different statistical scopes rather than a simple contradiction. The Greek wine sector includes more than 1,200 wineries, approximately 180,000 growers and vineyard holdings that are, on average, only slightly above five stremma, or about half a hectare. [1, 2]

The Greek Wine Federation describes a sector of roughly 1,500 winemaking enterprises, most of them small and family-based, and records around EUR 355 million in wine-sector value for the 2021 harvest. It also points to a rich product identity: thousands of bottled labels, a strong role of indigenous varieties, and an important PDO/PGI landscape. [3]

For the Grapes of Change Observatory, the central question is not only how much wine Greece produces. It is whether women are visible, protected and heard across the many places where wine work happens: vineyards, small wineries, island and regional wine tourism, restaurants, events, distribution, education and communication. At present, the public data make the sector visible, but they do not yet provide a consolidated view of women-owned wineries, women-managed wine businesses, gendered employment patterns, workplace harassment, reporting mechanisms or company-level prevention practices.

The annual focus of this report is therefore: from fragmentation to visible support. In a sector where many workplaces are small, family-based or tourism-facing, GBV prevention and workplace equality cannot rely only on formal HR systems in large companies. They must also be carried by associations, training providers, support services, local authorities, wine routes, events and trusted intermediaries.

Central Observatory question for Greece

How can workplace equality and GBV prevention reach women across vineyards, family wineries, tourism, hospitality, trade and wine communication when the sector is highly fragmented and data on women’s roles remains incomplete?

A wine ecosystem of small actors, strong identities and many access points

Greece should be read as a wine ecosystem, not only as a production sector. The country combines mainland and island vineyards, small family wineries, growers, associations, distributors, wine routes, hospitality, restaurants, events, education, wine journalism and destination-based tourism. This wider map matters because women may work, lead, sell, serve, communicate or train in different parts of the same sector, while facing different forms of visibility, dependency and risk.

The country’s wine identity is closely linked to regional diversity. Wines of Greece presents winegrowing regions across Macedonia, Thrace, Thessaly, Epirus, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, the Aegean Islands, Crete and the Ionian Islands, among others. [6] This territorial diversity creates cultural and commercial value, but it also means that support and prevention need to be accessible beyond Athens and beyond a small number of larger companies.

Greece in brief

table visualization

Why fragmentation matters for prevention

The Greek wine sector is highly fragmented. Wines of Greece describes an average vineyard holding of slightly above five stremma and identifies around 180,000 growers. [2] This creates a very different prevention environment from one dominated by large employers. In small farms and wineries, workplace culture may be shaped by family relations, local reputation, informal recruitment, seasonal pressure and direct relationships with customers or visitors.

For GBV prevention, this means that the most effective entry points may not always be internal HR departments. They may be sector associations, regional wine organisations, training centres, support services, tourism routes, employer networks, cooperatives and local authorities. The Observatory should therefore help translate rights and support pathways into practical, low-threshold information for small actors.

Women in Greek wine: visible in the ecosystem, not yet visible enough in data

The current public data do not provide a consolidated national figure for women-owned or women-managed wine-sector companies. Nor do they provide wine-sector-specific public indicators on women’s employment, pay, board representation, harassment reports, reporting channels or access to support. This is not a reason to exclude gender from the report; it is one of the report’s most important findings.

Women are visible in Greek wine culture, entrepreneurship, hospitality, education, communication and professional networks, but the evidence base does not yet allow the Observatory to measure how this visibility translates into leadership, safety or influence. Public sector and media resources illustrate this visibility: Women of Wine Greece presents itself as an association founded in 1997 by women professionally involved in wine, including winemakers, oenologists, viticulturists, sommeliers, journalists and professionals in sales and marketing; Gastronomos has also profiled Greek women winemakers and oenologists through their wines. [14, 15] These sources are valuable for visibility and storytelling, but they should not be used as substitutes for official gender-disaggregated statistics.

A country report for Greece should therefore avoid two misleading simplifications: it should not suggest that women are absent from Greek wine, and it should not treat qualitative visibility as proof of structural equality. The stronger Observatory question is how visible women professionals can become better counted, better protected and better represented in governance and decision-making.

Data transparency: what can be seen and what remains invisible

The available sources allow the report to describe vineyard area, production, regional diversity, fragmentation, number of growers and wineries, product identity, market structure and some export indicators. They do not yet allow a full measurement of gendered workplace conditions in the wine supply chain. In addition, reliable data on employment levels is particularly difficult to obtain in the agricultural sector in Greece, where seasonal and informal labour remains widespread. Many workers, often immigrants, are employed temporarily without formal contracts and are paid per crate or harvest volume, making workforce size and working conditions largely invisible in official records. This data gap is part of the Observatory agenda: what is not measured is often what is hardest to address.

Rights, duties and practical access

Greece has national institutions and legal frameworks addressing equal treatment, non-discrimination, gender equality, workplace rights and violence against women. For the wine sector, the practical issue is how these frameworks become understandable and usable in small wineries, seasonal work settings, tourism-facing businesses, restaurants, events, training programmes and family enterprises.

Equal treatment and discrimination at work

The Greek Ministry of Labour and Social Security explains that Law 4443/2016 prohibits discrimination in work and employment on several grounds, including sex-related and identity-related grounds covered by the equal-treatment framework. The Ministry states that the prohibition applies to the public and private sectors and covers access to employment, vocational training, working conditions, remuneration, dismissal, health and safety, professional advancement and participation in professional organisations. [7]

The same official guidance defines harassment as discrimination when unwanted conduct linked to a protected characteristic has the purpose or effect of violating dignity and creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. For wine-sector actors, this definition is important because harassment prevention is not only a question of individual behaviour. It is also a question of workplace rules, managerial response, training, reporting and protection against retaliation. [7]

Greek gender-equality legal resources also include Law 3896/2010 on equal opportunities and equal treatment of men and women in employment and occupation, which is listed in the national gender-equality legislation portal. [8] This framework is relevant for recruitment, career development, training, working conditions, pay and occupational social security.

Law 4808/2021 is particularly relevant for the Observatory because it ratified ILO Convention 190 on violence and harassment in the world of work and includes definitions, prevention measures, support provisions and sanctions related to violence and harassment. Its scope extends beyond standard employment contracts and includes trainees, volunteers, jobseekers, workers in the informal economy and work-related situations such as training, events, communication, travel and commuting. [13] This broad scope is important for a wine sector that includes vineyards, small wineries, tastings, fairs, tourism, restaurants, media work and travel between sites.

At international level, Greece is monitored under the Council of Europe Istanbul Convention framework. The Council of Europe country page records Greece’s signature in 2011, ratification in 2018 and entry into force in 2018; it also lists the GREVIO baseline evaluation report published in 2023. This framework is relevant to the Observatory because it connects national prevention, protection, prosecution and policy obligations with the practical question of whether support pathways are visible in rural, island and tourism-linked labour contexts. [12]

Violence against women and support pathways

The General Secretariat for Equality and Human Rights is responsible for planning, implementing and monitoring policies for equality and for preventing and combating violence against women. Its public information directs women experiencing violence to the SOS 15900 helpline and to local counselling centres, and also signposts emergency contact with the police when immediate help is needed. [9]

The SOS 15900 helpline is presented as a national service providing immediate help 24 hours a day, every day of the year, including information, psychosocial counselling and referral to local services. The public description explicitly includes sexual harassment at work among the situations covered. [16] The national counselling-centre network provides free information and counselling, including social, psychological, legal and labour support, referrals and prevention activities. [17]

KETHI, the Research Centre for Gender Equality, operates as a national knowledge and service actor in the equality field. Its public information describes activities related to violence against women, education, awareness-raising, equal pay, labour market participation, counselling centres and support for women victims of violence. [10]

Practical relevance for the wine sector

Legal protections are meaningful only if workers and employers know how to use them. In the Greek wine sector, this is particularly important because many actors are small, family-run or connected to tourism and hospitality. A prevention model designed for large companies may not reach a small winery, a seasonal harvest team, a family business, a wine bar, an island wine route or a young professional entering the sector through training or events.

For companies and SMEs, the practical minimum should include clear anti-harassment rules, information about rights and external support, a confidential way to raise concerns, protection against retaliation, and basic training for managers and team leaders. For associations and BSOs, the role is to translate legal frameworks into templates, checklists, training modules and referral pathways that smaller actors can actually use.

Five findings for the Greek Observatory profile

1. Fragmentation makes prevention difficult to standardise

The Greek wine sector includes many growers, small wineries and locally embedded businesses. This gives the sector resilience, identity and diversity, but it also means that formal HR systems and written reporting procedures may be unevenly distributed.

For the Observatory, the implication is clear: prevention should not be designed only for large employers. It must also reach micro and family enterprises through associations, training providers, wine routes, cooperatives, local authorities and support services.

2. The wine workplace extends into tourism and hospitality

Greek wine is strongly connected with restaurants, bars, tourism destinations, islands, wine trails, festivals, tastings and events. These settings may involve customer-facing work, late hours, travel, small teams and informal professional networks.

This matters because GBV and harassment prevention cannot stop at the cellar door. It must also address the places where wine is presented, sold, tasted, served, promoted and narrated.

3. Women’s role is visible, but not yet measurable enough

The public evidence base does not yet provide consolidated national data on women-owned wineries, women-managed wine businesses, women in wine-sector employment or women in sector governance. This makes it difficult to assess whether women’s visibility translates into authority, pay equality, protection and influence.

The Observatory should treat this as a priority data gap. Greece needs both better quantitative indicators and qualitative monitoring of women’s experiences across production, hospitality, tourism, distribution, training and communication.

4. Small and family-based businesses need usable tools

Many Greek wine actors are too small to develop complex internal compliance systems on their own. If prevention tools are too legalistic or too resource-intensive, they may remain unused.

For SMEs, the most useful Observatory outputs will be practical: model policy clauses, onboarding information, short training materials, guidance for bystanders, referral contacts and simple checklists for events, tastings, tourism activities and seasonal work.

5. Support pathways must be visible outside major urban centres

Greece’s wine regions are geographically diverse and include rural, island and tourism-intensive areas. Support services and legal information must therefore be easy to find, understandable and accessible from different territories, not only from the capital.

A practical Observatory agenda for Greece should connect wine-sector organisations with national and local support structures, including the SOS 15900 helpline, KETHI counselling centres, equality institutions and labour-related complaint channels.

Greece data snapshot

Greece in the wine-sector data landscape

Fragmentation and scale

Product identity and market signals

Prevention touchpoints across the Greek wine ecosystem

Official statistics and wine-sector data

Wine-sector organisations and ecosystem resources

Women in wine and professional visibility

  • Greek Women of Wine – Women-in-wine association founded by women working professionally across winemaking, oenology, viticulture, sommellerie, wine journalism, sales and marketing.
  • Diotima Centre – Specialised women’s organisation providing support and prevention activities related to gender-based violence and gender equality.
  • WomenSOS – Public information platform for women experiencing violence, including the SOS 15900 helpline and counselling-centre signposting.

Equality, labour and support services

References

  1. International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV). State of the World Vine and Wine Sector in 2024 / statistics entry point
  2. Wines of Greece. Key Production Figures / The Greek Vineyard Today
  3. Greek Wine Federation. Statistics of the sector and Greek vineyard
  4. Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT). Areas and Production / 2023, agricultural statistics
  5. Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT). Statistical Business Register / 2023
  6. Wines of Greece. Winegrowing Regions
  7. Hellenic Ministry of Labour and Social Security. Equal Treatment at Work
  8. General Secretariat for Equality and Human Rights / Gender equality legislation resources
  9. General Secretariat for Equality and Human Rights. Public information on violence against women and SOS 15900 support
  10. Research Centre for Gender Equality (KETHI). Profile, programmes and counselling centres
  11. Greek Ombudsman. Equal treatment, complaints and special reports
  12. Council of Europe. Istanbul Convention country page: Greece
  13. Law 4808/2021. Protection of Labour and ratification of ILO Convention 190
  14. Women of Wine Greece. Association profile and history
  15. Gastronomos. Public feature on Greek women winemakers and oenologists
  16. WomenSOS. SOS 15900 24-hour helpline
  17. WomenSOS. Counselling centres network
  18. Artisanal Greek Wineries Network. Members directory
  19. Winemakers of North Greece. Wineries and wine routes