Women in the Orange wine industry are a growing force, but remain underrepresented.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
That's according to Jane Thomson OAM, who travelled to the colour city this month to "empower" female producers and workers with a first-in-the-nation seminar.
"There's a lot of collegiality here among women in Orange and a lot of collaboration and support for each other, which is really great," she told the Central Western Daily on Wednesday.
"It's great to see all the positive things happening, but it's also important to know that Orange is not particularly different from other regions when it comes to gender representation; and at the moment, it's significantly lower than it needs to be."
The Woman in Wine founder met about two dozen representatives from producers including Canobolas Wines, Ross Hill, Nashdale Lane, ChaLou Wines, Ricard, and Byrne Farm at Printhie Wines.
The seminar covered brand communication and marketing.
![Jane Thomson event at Printhie Wines in Orange. Picture by Jude Keogh
Jane Thomson event at Printhie Wines in Orange. Picture by Jude Keogh](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/177764495/8c736cdd-1558-4454-8612-1a7b0132ca75.JPG/r0_0_8256_5504_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"I'm here in Orange as a guest of the region to meet the women of the region to hear their stories to see what's going on," Ms Thomson said.
"I think it was a success ... we only had a short period of time but we covered a lot of ground; We talked about how to best speak to customers, to other stakeholders, to journalists, to people that they might be meeting and greeting in their work life, and how to best craft a really powerful story to help explain what they do."
Alice Jarrett from See Saw Wines was in attendance. She says the future of wine in Orange is bright.
![Viv Wheaton - Printhie Wines, Monica Gray - See Saw Wines, Leimei Mattick - Canobolas Wines, Caitlin Byrne - Byrne Farm, Maggie Jarrett - See Saw Wines. Picture by Jude Keogh Viv Wheaton - Printhie Wines, Monica Gray - See Saw Wines, Leimei Mattick - Canobolas Wines, Caitlin Byrne - Byrne Farm, Maggie Jarrett - See Saw Wines. Picture by Jude Keogh](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/177764495/9057af8a-65ea-4d5c-864f-0a9d6ddc529e.JPG/r0_0_8256_5504_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"Today was about Jane bringing the women of Orange that are in the wine industry together ... to really workshop ways that we can advocate for ourselves and our brands and our stories in the industry and broader to that as well," Ms Jarrett told the CWD.
"We don't already have a lot of young people coming through, but I find Orange is a new up and coming wine industry ... we've actually got a lot of young women and it's a really exciting space at the moment.
"So there's actually a lot of energy and a lot of women really wanting to engage and work in and be a part of the Orange wine industry."