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The first time I saw Sotheby’s honorary chair of wine, Serena Sutcliffe MW, was at a tasting in 2013. She walked into a room full of dingy suits sporting a shocking pink leather biker jacket and sharp white hair. I remember thinking: If this is what good wine looks like, then I’m in.
“Oh my God! I still have that jacket! I usually put it on over jeans,” the 78-year-old laughs when we meet at the SothebyIt is based in London’s New Bond Street. It is here to host the launch of a new series of wine events organized by the asset management company. dogdesigned to attract more women to drinking and collecting fine wines (tonight, for the record, she’s sporting plum-colored suede ankle boots, a zigzag kilt, and a blood-red manicure).
Women make the majority of wine purchases in Western supermarkets, but they are underrepresented in the upper echelons of wine: Sotheby’s estimates that only 10 to 15 percent of its fine wine buyers are women. Sutcliffe He knows what it’s like to be an outlier. When she joined the wine business in the early 1970s, women were “virtually invisible,” she says. Undeterred, she became the world’s second Master of Wine in 1976 (the first was Sarah Morphew Stephens MW). “There were a lot of condescending guys back then,” Sutcliffe says briskly, “but I can’t say it bothered me. The wine was what made me angry, so I stayed until I got my MW.”
Three more grape names to know
Bo Heung
Director of private clients Asia at Justerini & Brooks (Hong Kong)
As head of J&B’s Hong Kong division, Heung has built up a strong client base, advising them on warehouse management, as well as offering valuation and brokerage services. Many start their journey with Bordeaux’s first historic crops, like Lafite, she says, “but now they are looking at other interesting regions, like Burgundy, Germany or the Jura.” Her goal is to educate customers not to be “label drinkers” who simply go with the big names; She likes to organize blind tastings, for example, of the same grape from different regions. justerinis.com
Laura Taylor
Fine Wine Advisor at Private Cellar (UK)
After seven years at Corney & Barrow, Taylor co-founded Private Cellar in 2005, an independent wine merchant offering everything from sales by the bottle to full portfolio management. As well as advising clients on their collections, Taylor runs a Women In Wine club that meets online every two months to taste a specially selected case. She also regularly hosts tastings and dinners for women (but not just women) with visiting producers. “Some of our members are already confident in wine, while others are new to it,” she says. “Either way, it’s often women who ask the most interesting questions!” bodegaprivada.es
Victoria James
Sommelier and beverage director at Cote and co-founder of Cote Wine Club (USA)
As beverage director of the vibrant Cote restaurant group (New York, Miami and soon, Singapore), James has fueled the fine wine scene, and her Cote Wine Club approaches fine wine with the same combination of style and attitude. Members receive monthly wine selections with food pairing tips (“think Pierre Gimonnet’s blanc de blancs with your grandmother’s gougères recipe!”), as well as invitations to winemaker dinners, BYOB lunches, and guided tastings. The fact that women have long been excluded from wine’s inner sanctum, she says, means that “they are now entering the world with fresh eyes and opinions; they are really going beyond that to see what the next new market trends will be and fashion producers”. could be.” cotewineclub.com
Sutcliffe rose through the ranks to become global director of Sotheby’s Wine, a role she held for 25 years, during which time she launched the auction house’s wine business in North America and the Far East. She chaired the Institute of the Masters of Wine and became the first British wine professional to receive the Legion of Honour. As honorary president, she remains an advisor to Sotheby’s wine department.
“I’ve met a lot of women with natural abilities but maybe lacking confidence,” Sutcliffe says. “They often have a better sense of smell and taste, but are less fact-based than men. They seem less interested in collecting, a word I don’t like because it has connotations of hoarding. “I like to think they buy wine less for prestige and more because they love it.”
In a bid to attract a larger female contingent, Sotheby’s and Hundle will host more wine events, fertilizing wine with fashion, fine art and jewelry (before entering the wine business, Sutcliffe actually considered becoming a gemologist). Sotheby’s says it also intends to increase the number of women in private client roles.
The number of female wine buyers at Sotheby’s peaked in 2022, when the pandemic was accelerating the growth of online sales, a development that Sutcliffe said allowed buyers to “research in privacy and peace, without being sponsored.” ”. Sotheby’s also saw an increase in the number of bidders under 40 during this time.
“There are so many different types of people coming into the fine wine market now – it has completely changed from that quite small world it was 40 or 50 years ago,” Sutcliffe says. “Bordeaux and Burgundy remain essential, but some of the best Italian wines are also yet to arrive. Some top-notch Californians and Australians too. I think Italy in particular has the potential to go even further. I love northeast Italy, especially for its whites. For reds, I think it’s a matter of identifying the right plots because they have a great diversity of climate and soils; It is something they have already done in some parts of the Maremma, in southern Tuscany.”
Sutcliffe very diplomatically declines to choose a favorite offering or bottle of wine, but waxes lyrical about a recent tasting of an ’82 and ’83 Château Margaux. “You want that great Margaux aroma, very lovely, quite different of the most solid black fruit and the great nose of Pauillac. It has to unfold in layers and have depth and volume.
“A great wine must have character and personality,” he adds. ‘They must sing to you, and they do. When you play one that’s actually in the song, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
When Sutcliffe isn’t drinking wine, he loves aquavit: “It’s my Achilles heel, I love it. We have it during special times like Christmas or if the weather is bad. And you also have to eat herring.”
If you are starting out in the world of wine, he advises “start by buying single bottles, here, there and everywhere. And once you’ve found a wine you like, buy a case, because establishing a relationship with a young vintage and watching it evolve over time is one of the most fascinating things.
“And don’t be intimidated by it. Ask for the wine, the grape variety or the region you don’t know, that’s what I always do. Because there is really nothing less terrifying than wine. “It’s really terribly docile.”
For more information about Hundle’s future Women & Wine events, please contact ederusset@hundle.co