Ep 511: wine2wine session | #metoo In The Wine Business

Italian wine podcast. Chinchin with Italian wine people. Italian wine podcast as wine to wine twenty twenty media partner is proud to present a series of sessions chosen to highlight key themes and ideas and recorded during the two day event held on November twenty third and twenty fourth twenty twenty. One to wine twenty twenty represented the first ever fully digital edition of the business to business forum. Visit wine to wine dot net and make sure to attend future editions of wine to wine business forum. Welcome everyone to hash tag me too in the wine business, what happened and what we can do to change the sexist culture online and work. I'm Michelle Erland, a senior account executive with Colangelo and Partners Public Relations in New York. And I'm very excited to be here with two very talented wine professionals Tatiana and Laura. Tatiana is a London based, wine communicator consultant and entrepreneur. After working in the male dominated investment baking industry, Tatiana caught the wine bug on a trip to Napa Valley in two thousand eleven, combining her passion for wine and travel. Tatiana co founded a wine tourism online booking platform. She holds a diploma in wine and spirits and is currently a brand ambassador for per us, a boutique, Napa winery. La Artonadoni is an Italian wine journalist and blogger. Based in San Diego where four years ago she founded the Italian wine girl blog and LAcom wine agency, a licensed wine importing company and strategic PR and communications firm focused on the wine industry. She is a certified Sommelier with Merritt, with both the North American Sommelier Association and the World Sommelier Association and W Set level three. Also, a fellow, Ben Italy Italian wine, Ambassador, ladies, thank you so much for joining me today. Yeah. That's good. I know. So thank you. Of course. So we are here today to talk about the hashtag Me too movement, which popped up on the scene in two thousand six. But took the world by storm in two thousand seventeen when there was all these audio channels and we saw industry different me to, situation happening. This scandal that was covered by the New York Times is really just the tip of the iceberg. And there were other situations that happened around the world. So now I would actually like to turn to Tatiana, who is in London. We talked about the hashtag championship that flooded the European Weinstein. Tapiana. Thank you, Michelle. And thank you, wine, wine, verona, for letting us speak on this sensitive subject. I know it's a difficult conversation to have. But it's one that we absolutely must have. So in a year that already has been tough with COVID and everyone's struggling with mental health and, inequality has only become a bigger issue what we really needed was more kindness. Instead, we had two bombshells, a CMS scandal in the USA, and the wine beach here in the UK. So if you, live on a different planet, you haven't heard about it, guys, I'll give you a quick overview of what Wine Beach was about, Laura can talk a little bit more about the CMS, scandal in the US. So during lockdown in the UK, a total of twelve newsletters were sent privately anonymously by, individual. And, the nature of this newsletter was, hateful vile. It was hateful towards women and also peers in the industry And, it turned out that it was a well known, TV personality, quite a charming individual, well known in the trade, quite a senior person. This person was, confronted privately, but he continued to write really hateful stuff, in, and, circulating to the inner circle. It was leaked and that's how we found out. And, unfortunately, what happened, there was no immediate apology when some bloggers tried to confirm this person. He only sent cease and desist letters. And what we saw after that on social media is that not many people in the trade wanted to talk about this subject publicly because they're equally scared about legal threats and defamation. I was, enthralled in all of this personally, and I was shocked because I was a protagonist of one of these newsletters, and I was shocked because I thought a lot better of this person. He was sort of my sponsor at my diploma Sherry Awards back back in January two thousand nineteen. So I really looked up to to this guy, and I was really deeply disappointed and sad to read, what he wrote about so many other friends and individuals. So what we're here today to discuss is why it happened and what we can do better. We're not here to lament anyone. We're just trying to talk about how we can do better. We can also at the individual level, at the organizational level. We have to say this is not okay. Mental and sexual abuse is not okay. And if you don't want to do it for us, women currently do it for your daughters. Do it for the future generation, we're all going to benefit for it. Exactly. Thank you so much, Tatiana. And the CMS scandal, you can read up all about it in Julia Lilskins, detailed investigation in the New York Times, but I want to turn to Louda who has Louda. You are a deep famous Italian wine girl. I'm very large following online, and I wanna talk about what effect has social media made on the wine industry. And also, if you could share an experience or a challenge, you have faced as a tie a top wine influencer. Oh, okay. Thank you for the definition of top influencer. Certainly not a top and even an influencer. I I mean, I don't think to be, but anyway, I have a beautiful community online, and that's I'm blessed to have. So So I'm pretty happy to address this topic of the social media, and the wine industry because it's, really deeply linked to the, gender disparity we are talking about today. So it's undeniable that social media are a huge opportunity for the wine industry. And when I started the Italian one girl, almost five years ago, my goal was to find a new way to inform and educate about Italian wines. So beside my blog, I already had my blog. I was writing articles, but I wanted to find a new way to, you know, drive people to my work, my articles. So the idea to me was and still is that the social media serve a goal to catch up the attention of the audience and to drive more people to one education, to the one industry, with information and conscious consumption of this much magical beverage that is wine. So that was my aim and still is. So I started my Instagram account with the only aim to show the beauty of wine, to make people curious, to read my articles or watch my videos, which are still the core of my work. So social media to me are a mean, an instrument. But in these last years, something changed in, you know, in the overall, picture of social media. So for most influencers, now social media are no mean no instrument. They are the core of their work. So most of the influencer, they don't have a blog or another more in-depth channel. Their whole communication is on Instagram. So, when they post something is not to recall an art or record a video where you can go and learn more, that is the communication. So that post, that story is the core of their work. So the which are the consequences. So the consequence is to me sometimes a lower level of education content because you have to stick to the social media standards. So you have a certain length. You can write, like, four thousand words, about a wine on a on an Instagram post. So you have to be synthetic, so less information for sure. And also, you have to respond to some, you know, system, like the algorithm of program, so you have to take in account the likability of what you are putting out. So if this is your, final goal, you understand that content and, one education, is in the background. Is not the first goal of your communication. And this switch, this this shift from, in-depth content with articles and videos to, a more superficial content or synthetic content which are which can be a post on Instagram or on Facebook, change the rules of how we, inform people about wise. So it's I don't wanna say what is best, because it depends. It depends on your audience. It depends on your goal. It depends on your target, but this is what is happening. And so, yeah, for sure social media are an opportunity because now with them, we can reach more people than before. So it's a huge opportunity for us and, talking about women and wine, think about that women are the majority of the wine buyers among the consumers. So we have to think how to include women in our community on the social media in order to spread more wine culture. So it's a, you know, a double sided coin. We have to take in into account both these two issues I I address. But, so on one side, we have the risk to misinform or inform superficially. On the other side, we have the advantage to reach more people and the occasion to include women or, diversity is also you know, like minorities in our communication. So, but we have to address the elephant in the room. And, we have to say that life is not the same for female influencers and male influencer as one communicator. And I have some slides to show you guys, in order to understand what I'm talking about is preview pretty counterintuitive if Michelle. We're gonna pull up your beautiful presentation right now. Yeah. It's just I just collected some images from the internet. So as you can see, the first, slide shows what you get if you go on Google and write men wine. So you you are looking for content, related to wine and men. And you see the pictures that pop pops up are, like, respectable men, like, you know, very confident men, trustworthy men with drinking their wines or explaining to other wines. And if you would jump to the other, yeah, slide, this is what happened where if you, you know, digit women and wine. So it was shocking to me that the first image that Google show me with this, research He's nudity. He's a he's a women. He's a woman with the breasts out naked with a glass of wine. And if we go through the images, you see a lot of sexual, you know, and, nudity, related to wine and women. So the the question is, I'm I'm asking question because I would like to interact with the audience today. If the most clicked images of wine and women are sexual or displaying nudity, women wine communicators like me are inclined to follow this trend in order to stand out in order to be noticed because if if they don't do that, probably they won't pop up pop up in the researches. They won't pop up in the algorithm of Instagram or or Facebook. So it means they need to, you know, behave or choose that kind of con contact in order to be seen. Otherwise, we are invisible That's what I I'm a I'm putting out provocations. I mean, that's, like, okay. And why is not the case for men? So it's pretty okay. If we go, yeah, with the presentation, I try to look for the hashtag one boy and one girl on Instagram. As you can see, like, the hashtag one girl is very, very popular. You have more than a thousand, a hundred thousand posts with that tag, and he's not so popular that, guys, like, put, like, one boy as a hashtag. So what does it mean? It means that the gender communication in the wine business is working, one way. So if you are a woman, you wanna use the hashtag one girl because, you know, that people will look for girls and wine in order to look picture like the one, I I'm showing there with I mean, it's it's pretty obvious that there is a sexual drive in that picture. And the last thing I wanna I wanna address, I want to address, I might, talk about the social media, is body shaming. Because if the life of female, wine influencer is, already hard enough because of what I just said. We have to deal with body shaming. Body shaming is directed to women in ninety nine percent of the cases and is a a statistic of last year. And my example is one of the example, I'm showing you in this picture is that I was posting, like, just last September a couple of months ago. I was posting about my, speech to the Samcon, which is one of the most, you know, a renowned and, prestigious conference of so many in the United States. So I was very proud that I was about to be a speaker also this year. And I posted a picture of last year because this year we did everything online, saying, okay, I'm gonna speak, at some comm, I'm very proud of it, follow my seminars. And the first comment below me saying, okay. I'm a woman. I'm a wine communicator. I'm a speaker at Samcon, so I do have, you know, some credibility to talk about wines. The first comment below is a super vine girl, okay, wine girl. Please increase your weight. So the only comment below this picture on Facebook is about my buddy. Unbelievable. Well, louder, thank you so much for putting this slides together because it's really eye opening. But now I actually would like to turn to, Tatiana because, you know, all of you guys are freelancers. Right? So Tatiana, could you tell us Do you think freelancers are more vulnerable to sexism, sexual harassment, cyberbullying? And if so, why? Thank you, Michelle. Really interesting slides there. And, I'll talk a little bit about Mike's experience as a woman and wine how I got into it. And I I became a freelancer. So I exactly like Laura was saying, I was a consumer before, and the majority of consumers now more than fifty and are female in all major markets. So there will be a lot more curious female consumers in the future wanting to enter the industry. So we have to make sure that they don't feel threatened. Maybe this issue that I face is acceptance in the industry. I constantly feel the pressure to prove myself that it's not just a hobby or a passion, and not that just, some sort of alcoholic mum, you know, it's just well known that the the wine mom syndrome. Yes. I'm a mom and a drink wine, but it's also my profession. So, unfortunately, for women and wine, this also means to take the academic path. There are more than fifty percent of, beauty cultures and winemaking students at UC Davis and less than ten percent female winemakers in California. In terms of master of wines, only in two thousand eleven, we have seen for the first time more women, master of wines, and men. Currently, they stand at a third, of women of all masters of wine worldwide, which is around three hundred and fourteen in total. I still hear stories of young female masters of wines being treated as students, even though they were a badge. So I don't know what more they can do. If I were to make a pound for each time someone asks me, when are you going to enroll in the MW program? I'll probably be able to bloody pay for it now. But I am a woman, and I've realized that I have to prove anyone anything. I have I'm juggling three kids, at freelancing, wine, communicator career and a brand ambassador. I don't have to prove anyone I'm superwoman and get another accolade. And letters to my name. Research actually shows that in an interview, women, when they see a job description, they assume they need hundred percent of the skills for the job. So they'll go and take and they'll be overqualified. Well, men assume they only need sixty percent of the qualifications required on, a job interview, and that's industry wide statistics. So in terms of freelancers, I definitely think they're more vulnerable. That's because They have no backfolds in organization to a legal department to compliance to HR. Also, they have to rely on, making income from, different projects. And I know, quite a few of my friends were freelancers, classic successful influencers. They have real jobs in other industries paying for it, and they still get a lot of, abuse and shit cyberbullying from other people who say, you know, that, you know, shit basically about wine. So, you know, we do have to engage, millennials and genzad generation using more, of digital strategy tools and more freelancers. So we have to make sure that these people are not ostracized. Exactly. Tatiana, you brought up so many good points there. I do want to make sure we get to, how we're going to change. So I'd like to ask both of you this question. Let's start with you, Laura. What are the most critical changes that we must make today to face a more safe and inclusive wine industry, please. Okay. Thank you. I will go on with the social media topic so Tatiana can address maybe the industry and, like, the suggestion about the industry and the business. So to me, on social media, as a communicator, I think that the change from a sexy, empty, no content communication to a more substantial one is possible. And influencer can really be an opportunity both for their communities and for the wine producers. So most of the time, swim and wine influencers don't even realize they are acting on the basis of sexual biases. So they just think that the only way to gain visibility on social media for Phoenix is to use their bodies or their pretty faces or their cleavage, you know, in most of the times. So the first step is that we women on social media recognize these biases and stop acting on them. I know it's hard to do because you have this slavery of the algorithm of the likes of the follows, and and it's not so easy to perform this. But if we wanna change, we need to be brave and to overcome this. So, yes, we can also upload a no makeup picture with an amazing wine. We just enjoyed on our Instagram stories and make other people know about that wine spreading one culture. So how many times happen happen to me that for instance, I I I wasn't sharing a content because I wasn't feeling okay with my aspect. So I wasn't, like, filming a story or posting a picture of me enjoying the wine because I was thinking, okay. I'm not pretty enough. So if we start from our self, I'm I'm trying to do so. I'm trying to change my communication on social media on a more, you know, content, reading communication. And I don't care if my errors are not perfect. If I'm not wearing nail polish and I'm not now, or but, I want people to care about what I have to say. And if we are brave enough to do so and to go to overcome these biases, which are part of us because we were grown like that. And we we grew up in a sex sensitive culture. I think we also need to listen to each other and speak up when we see something that's maybe not making us feel okay, and we all need to do it as an entire industry. But I do wanna get to Tatiana a few people here. Oh, yeah. Yes. Sorry. How you think? I know. The business right now in order to make it more inclusive and safe, please. Thank you. And just to pick on, Laura's thought trail on social media, in my ideal world, we would live in a world where we don't judge. I know plenty of women who are body confident and are academically qualified to speak about wine. You can be a feminist and you can be, feminine. So, I also don't want people to judge women because they are working moms or because they're stay at home moms or because of what they wear or because of what they they say. So we're all people. The future is going to be non gender non binary, and we need to take into account and be inclusive. In terms of business, propositions, now I know this is going to take time. These are not easy solutions. But I do have some ideas, and the first one is, of course, to have more women at the table, be more inclusive. By having more women at the table, you will be benefit as a business because you will engage with more consumers as we said, more females consumers nowadays in terms of wine consumption. Also, more support for women, more mentoring, more training as well. So more, less gender pay gap and so on. I came from a banking industry, and since I've moved on now nine years ago, a lot has changed. Very male dominated environment, but companies are now required to report the gender pay gap. So the, you know, it is still a gender pay gap, but they're working towards it. Women and men now share parental leave equally for six months. I know this isn't heard of in the USA, and also, there are incentives to get, stay at home moms back to work. So it's all going in the right direction. I think we're still a decade or so away from it, but we need to see the same happening in the wine industry rein, which brings me to the second point, which is related to code of conduct. So we need more often industry wide approach and protocol against anti bullying, anti harassment, and disciplinary actions when we see it out. Companies need to have a zero dollar tolerance policy in place, especially in hospitality, freelancers need more support. So I'm currently working with organizations like the drinks trust and on a code of conduct as well that I'm trying to adopt from other inter trees, and it might look like an enjoyable charity. So if anyone can offer help in terms of legal sponsorship, we we would much appreciate it. And, and, lastly, I think we just need to appreciate that. A lot of the wine companies are still small and lack HR and legal departments, so they won't be able to help in house. So they can seek out an outsource training on diversity, especially, and and outsourcing can be a very good solution. Absolutely. And I'm actually happy to report stuff. We just came across a new initiative in the United States that's called, be the change. It's a virtual job fair. The first one is happening on the second and third of December, and it's free to register. And it is pretty much a job fair that is gonna focus on diversity and inclusion, and there'll be representatives from Gallo and Jackson family, and lots of people that you can talk to. If you wanna get into wine, if you wanna maybe understand different avenues within wine, please check them out at be the change job fair dot com because there's a lot of opportunities there. And I think this is bringing up an important topic, which is mentorship. Right? I think the wine industry's been I wanna say a little closed off to the steps that you need to get to a place. So to end our wonderful seminar, I'd like to ask each of you a question as very successful wine, professionals what is one piece of practical advice you would give to a female starting out in the industry? Lara, let's start with you. Yeah. The first, suggestion I will give is to inform herself, so to educate to study about wines, but don't feel obliged to do that through the wine institution you have now on the market because we've seen that some of them are really not, you know, responding to these, you know, requirements of diversity and inclusions And so pick the one that represents you the most and the one with the women leader. Because as you mentioned, we need the women, like, more women in the leadership. And we as female, we need some example, to look up and to be inspired off. So inform yourself, educate yourself and look for, women in the wine business that can mentor you. So your suggest to. Absolutely. And I wanna say there is lots of amazing male wine professionals as well. And we need them to be just as supportive in this initiative. I think that's important. Diana, what advice do you have for someone to start now? Wonderful words, Laura. I'll just keep it short of saying be curious, be proactive, and be authentic. If you're not comfortable, just don't be afraid to say this is not okay. Also, for long education, are so many books currently to read. So many online courses to engage. I personally found it very beneficial to have a study group when I did my diploma, and, networking like that. But, you know, as Laura said, find a woman or many women. There are so many women and wine organizations right now, and that's a great starting point because you don't feel threatened to start with. Absolutely. Well, thank you Tatiana. We have one comment coming in from Maria. Why not create a special hashtag for professional women to spread a different kind of communication. I'm gonna take that responsibility to the Italian wine group. It's a good idea. Absolutely. We love it. Well, I just we are at the end of our session. I wanna thank both of you ladies you are very empowering and you inspire me. If anyone has any questions for either of our panelists, please feel free to reach out to them, and let's do it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks. Bye. Listen to the Italian one podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SunCloud, Apple Podcasts, Himalaya, them, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italian One Podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. Until next time.