Women in Wine Expo to Unite Global Wine Professionals in Georgia
The Women in Wine Expo will bring global women wine professionals together in Georgia to close the industry gender gap.
Women from different continents will gather at Lopota Lake Resort on May 7-8 with the collective goal of creating a future without a gender gap in the wine industry. In addition to live attendance, videos will be submitted from women around the world, voicing support in spirit on this annual two-day event.
“The choice for this location was easy, as we believe every professional in the wine industry should experience the region where winemaking all started. Our goal is to have 100 women wine professionals from all around the world attend our conference and discuss the status of diversity in the wine industry. We want to bring like-minded women together to generate more coverage for women in wine in distributors’ and importers’ catalogs, on wine lists and in the press. The gender gap is a global issue in this very global industry, and we must work together to close it,” says Senay Ozdemir, Women in Wine Expo founder.
WIWE is now in its second year after a successful inaugural summit in 2019. The Keynote Speaker in Georgia will be Karen MacNeil, author of the Wine Bible, now working on chapters about Ancient Wine Regions. Other topics that will be discussed are Dry Farming, Sustainability and Consumer Trends. For the first time data on the state of gender in the EU wine industry will be presented. The many panel discussions will cover topics such as entrepreneurship, how women can identify resources and secure funding to start their own businesses, and how to establish a successful PR & Marketing strategy. With Wine Business Monthly (the industry’s leading publication for wineries and growers) own managing editor, Erin Kirschenman, will speak about reporting on wine and wine-related businesses.
While the number of women wine professionals continues to rise globally, women worldwide are still paid just 63% of what men earn (World Economic Forum), and are often under-represented as lead winemakers, sommeliers and in leadership positions in wine companies.
Ozdemir’s vision came to life over a two-day event in Rotterdam and Brussels, two key markets in the European wine trade, representing the 15th and 18th largest markets worldwide by volume (Euromonitor, 2018), along with wine consumption at 24.1 liters per capita in The Netherlands, and a whopping 31.9 liters per of wine consumed per capita in Belgium, one of the highest per-capita wine consumption rates worldwide (OIV, 2016).
Georgian Delegation at Wine Expo
“We also want men to know this affects everyone in the industry and we need their support as much as possible — to make it as important to them as it is to us,” says Ozdemir. “We want them to know they can make a huge change by supporting and sponsoring initiatives like this and continuing the dialogue.”
“We’ve seen the creation of women in wine organizations worldwide, with more women joining the industry facing economic inequality as well as gender, age and race discrimination. These new groups present an opportunity for abundance. We don’t want to share the pie, we want to grow it,” says Ozdemir.
The Women in Wine Expo is the first of its kind in Europe, attracting participation from women from US, Canada, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Lebanon, South-Africa, Nigeria and of course Georgia.
Contact for more information:
Senay Ozdemir
+31 6 48 95 91 44 senay@houseofredandwhite.com
For more information on the Women in Wine Expo:
https://www.womeninwineexpo.com