Mind the GENDER GAP

Wine collecting has long been seen as a predominantly male domain, but women are becoming increasingly visible in the field even if they may have different driving forces 

- ANNE KREBIEHL MW

Women have long collected art, they are also eminent collectors of luxury accessories and certainly of fashion, but what about wine? For the longest time, female wine collectors were the exception that proved the rule. Finally, though, women are breaking into this rarefied world. While progress is slow, there are clear reasons for this – not least psychology, wine styles and generational change.

A VERY MALE PAST

‘The collecting world is the auction world,’ says Serena Sutcliffe MW, who started working at Sotheby’s in 1991 and rose to become global head of the auctioneer’s wine department until she retired from the role in 2015. She puts it succinctly: ‘Female wine collectors, a rare breed indeed.’ She notes: ‘The collecting world was 99% male when I started at Sotheby’s and has virtually remained the same. There have been very few women who built up wine collections in my entire auction career – a few powerful Asian women come to mind.’

Yet change is afoot. While Sotheby’s does not reveal figures, its press office notes that: ‘In 2022, Sotheby’s Global Wine & Spirits experienced year-on-year growth in lots purchased by women. This was driven by women collectors most prominently in North America, followed by Europe, then Asia.’

Figures from rival Christie’s show how small the female share still is and reveal different regional realities. In 2022, 10% of Christie’s bidders in wine were female, up from 8% in 2018. When weighted regionally, the west lags behind. Just 6% of buyers in the Americas and European markets were female while the figure for Asia-Pacific was 18%, despite 41% of global wine buyers now being below the age of 40 – a figure that climbs to 47% in Asia.