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Female leaders in the Livermore Valley wine industry are set to once again host a tasting event this month to showcase their work ahead of the grape harvesting season.
Hints of Harvest: A Women’s Wine Collective Event is an open-house style gathering where guests can sip industry-favorites and speak directly with the women behind the bottle.
The host collective is a community group composed of women working in all facets of the wine industry who support and empower each other in a traditionally male-dominated industry.
At the third Hints of Harvest event, wine will be served with crostini pairings and additional food will be available for purchase.
A total of 15 female-driven Livermore Valley wineries are set to attend, including Almost Famous Wine Company, Charles R Vineyards, Concannon Vineyard, Darcie Kent Estate Winery, Del Valle Winery, Fenestra Winery, Garré Vineyard & Winery, JMC Cellars, McGrail Vineyards and Winery, Omega Road Winery, Page Mill Winery, Rodrigue Molyneaux Winery, Sakura Winery, The Steven Kent Winery and Wood Family Vineyards.
“We all love what we do and so we love getting to share that with guests and with the community,” said Alexandra Henkelman, owner and winemaker at Omega Road Winery as well as collective co-founder.
Set to attend Hints of Harvest, Henkelman founded Omega Road Winery with her dad in 2012, with commercial production beginning in 2014.
Prior to kick-starting the business, she graduated from California Polytechnic State University with a major in economics and a concentration in marketing. But it wasn’t until she pursued winemaking and viticulture at Las Positas College that she found a career path that resonated with her.
Stepping out of her first class at LPC, Henkelman remembers feeling as though she’d found exactly what she was meant to do.
The way that wine exists at the blending point of science and art is beautiful, she said.
“It’s the most incredible and unique way of capturing not just a moment in time or a style or a place — it does all those things — but then you open it and it’s a whole new memory in the making and it’s a whole new piece of magic that then people will remember,” Henkelman said.
Over the span of a few years, Henkelman and her father took courses at University of California, Davis and Sonoma State University as well as additional classes at LPC to learn more about wine and its production.
Then in 2017, Henkelman and her parents opened the Omega Road Winery tasting room in Livermore to the public.
A few miles away in 2023, Jessica Carroll opened the JMC Cellars tasting room.
“I’ve always wanted to have my own business and I never actually thought it would be a reality,” Carroll said. “And so when the opportunity presented itself, it was a dream come true.”
“My background is in civil engineering, and it turns out I went from one male-dominated industry to another,” Carroll added.
Henkelman and Carroll joined forces to create the Women’s Wine Collective in 2022, following discussions of the mutual challenges they faced as women in the industry.
In the California wine industry, women hold approximately 15%-20% of decision-making roles including winemakers, tasting room managers and winery owners, according to Henkelman. As with change in any aspect of life, she said there can be some resistance.
Similar to other industries, women face challenges to be heard and recognized for their contributions to the wine industry, Henkelman added.
“It can be a challenge for women to step into that space and take on that leadership, but I think our women are absolutely incredible and deserve the recognition for what they’re doing and the experiences that they’re creating at the wineries and in the tasting rooms with all our guests that come into the region,” Henkelman said.
In the Livermore wine sector, women hold over roughly 50% of leadership roles, according to Henkelman’s estimation.
“It’s already a very amazing place to be in business and to be a winemaker. There’s also not the pretense that comes with wine in so many places,” Henkelman said of the Livermore Valley. “It’s welcoming. It’s approachable for so many.”
The area’s hospitality can be attributed in part to women being in leadership positions and their meticulous care in crafting wine, Henkelman added.
But operating in the region does not come without its challenges.
One such challenge female business owners face in the Livermore Valley wine industry — oftentimes starting up small wineries — is competing with established and well-known wineries in the area, Henkelman said. But even the larger wineries like Wente are inclusive of female decision-makers, she added.
“Our goal is not to say that anybody is better or worse, but really just to highlight and empower, to elevate the women who are making decisions and to showcase that,” Henkelman said of the collective.
In addition to spotlighting women-driven wineries this year, Henkelman hopes to highlight the work being done at host restaurant Charming Fig, owned by Julia Steinman.
Hints of Harvest is set to take place from 6-8 p.m. next Thursday (Aug. 21) at the Charming Fig in Livermore. For tickets, visit the Livermore Valley Wine Community website at lvwine.org.
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