Across countries, roles, and generations, women working in the wine sector have long reported similar experiences: their competence questioned, their authority undermined, their presence tolerated but rarely legitimized. These stories rarely made headlines. They circulated privately, shared cautiously, often framed as misunderstandings, isolated incidents, or personal sensitivity. For years, they remained uncollected, unmeasured, and therefore easily dismissed.
The need for a European project on gender equality in the wine sector did not arise from ideology, nor from a sudden wave of outrage. It emerged from accumulation. From repetition. From patterns that became impossible to ignore.
Qualitative evidence that could no longer be ignored
One of the starting points of this realization was Intrepide, (Laura Donadoni, Slow Food Editore, 2023), a book that brings together the voices of women working across the Italian wine sector. It was not conceived as an act of denunciation. Rather, it was an exploration of leadership, craftsmanship, and professional identity through lived experience.
Yet, as these stories were gathered, a recurring subtext emerged. Regardless of age, role, or background, many of the women described similar obstacles: being perceived as less competent than male counterparts, being relegated to communication or administrative roles while excluded from technical decision-making, having to repeatedly prove legitimacy in spaces where male authority was assumed by default.
What surfaced was not a collection of individual grievances, but a coherent qualitative pattern. A system in which discrimination rarely appears as explicit exclusion, but rather as normalization: jokes that undermine authority, assumptions about physical or emotional suitability, informal networks from which women are absent, professional environments where boundaries are blurred and power imbalances left unaddressed.
These dynamics were described matter-of-factly, often without anger, sometimes without even naming them as discrimination. That, in itself, was revealing.
When the “Invisible” became public
For a long time, the wine sector was largely absent from global conversations on gender-based discrimination and harassment. Then, in 2020, that silence was broken.
In the United States, the Court of Master Sommeliers America became the epicenter of a MeToo movement within the wine world. Multiple women came forward with allegations of sexual harassment, coercion, and abuse of power within one of the most prestigious certification bodies in the industry. Investigations followed. Leadership resigned. Structural flaws were exposed. The case demonstrated that even institutions built on excellence and rigor could harbor deeply rooted cultures of silence and discrimination.
Similar stories have since emerged in Europe. In France, investigative journalism has documented harassment and gender-based abuse during harvest seasons, internships, and professional training environments. These were not marginal settings, but core spaces of professional formation. Again, what stood out was not only the behavior itself, but the absence of reporting mechanisms, protection structures, and institutional accountability.
These cases made visible what had long existed beneath the surface. They confirmed that what had been described anecdotally in books, interviews, and private conversations was part of a broader, systemic issue.
The Data Gap: what is not measured does not exist
Despite these revelations, one fundamental problem remains: the wine sector lacks a structured, transnational system to monitor discrimination, harassment, and gender-based inequality.
There is no centralized database collecting reports. No observatory tracking patterns over time. No shared indicators to assess workplace culture, power dynamics, or risk factors. In many countries, incidents are either handled internally, discouraged from being reported, or never formally recorded at all.
This absence of data has consequences. Without observation, there can be no prevention. Without monitoring, there can be no accountability. The lack of evidence is often misread as the absence of a problem, rather than as proof of systemic invisibility.
Gender-based discrimination in the wine sector has therefore existed in a paradoxical state: widely experienced, quietly acknowledged, but institutionally undocumented.
Beyond Storytelling: the limits of individual narratives
For years, the sector has relied on storytelling as a tool for change. Sharing experiences has been essential, but it is no longer sufficient. Stories can raise awareness, but they cannot, on their own, reshape organizational cultures or prevent future harm.
What is required is a structural shift: from reacting to incidents to preventing them; from individual courage to collective responsibility; from silence to systems.
This is where the rationale for a European-level intervention becomes clear. The wine sector is transnational by nature. Its labor force is mobile, its markets interconnected, its cultural references shared across borders. Addressing gender inequality within it requires tools that operate at the same scale.
The role of Grapes of Change
Grapes of Change was conceived precisely within this gap. Not as a punitive initiative, and not as a symbolic statement, but as a structural response to a systemic issue.
At its core, the project recognizes that change begins with observation. One of its central components is the creation of an observatory dedicated to gender equality in the wine sector: a space to collect data, map experiences, identify patterns, and make the invisible visible. By aggregating reports and qualitative evidence, the observatory aims to provide a clearer picture of working conditions across different contexts and countries.
This evidence-based approach is paired with a strong focus on training and prevention. The objective is not to assign blame retrospectively, but to work proactively with companies, organizations, and institutions to foster safer, more equitable professional environments.
Education, awareness, and clear protocols are key to ensuring that future generations do not inherit the same normalized imbalances.
Why this matters now
The wine sector increasingly positions itself at the forefront of conversations around sustainability, ethics, and responsibility. Social sustainability cannot be excluded from this narrative. A sector that values territory, biodiversity, and long-term vision cannot afford to overlook the well-being and dignity of the people who sustain it.
Gender equality is not an external demand imposed on the wine world. It is a prerequisite for its credibility, resilience, and future relevance.
The absence of data, the normalization of silence, and the fragmentation of responsibility have allowed discrimination to persist quietly for too long. Grapes of Change starts from a simple premise: what is observed can be understood, and what is understood can be changed.
This project exists because the stories were already there. Because the cases were never isolated. And because silence, when left unchallenged, becomes a system.