[March 01, 2024]

For International Women’s Day, I was asked to write about an Outstanding Woman in Wine. I didn’t have to look very far for a prime subject: my dear wife of almost 50 years – Barbara Laithwaite CBE, businesswoman and grape-grower – sitting right opposite me here. Who better?

From the outset, when she first joined me in the business, there was no doubt as to who was to be the Managing Director when we formed our infant Limited Company. It wasn’t me. No surprise was ever expressed by anyone at Barbara’s appointment, as far as I can remember. Apart from by me, maybe.

Women did not, back then, in the ’70s, have many of the top jobs. Hardly any at all. But they were always there, I noticed, in all the companies I ever dealt with, but often went under the misnomer of ‘secretary’. They were hidden away, but they were the ones to go to if you wanted to be certain that something actually got done.

It seemed quite normal to me. I had grown up in a fairly normal family, where women … well, maybe they didn’t ‘rule’ but they certainly ran virtually everything. Nobody ever dared stand in the way of my Nana. And my mother talked and wrote non-stop to get exactly what she wanted for her family.

I took the important-sounding role of Chairman at Direct Wines Ltd (the name we were forced to use after some opportunistic so-and-so – a man, of course – registered/stole our nice Bordeaux Direct name). But there was never any doubt as to who ran things. Barbara just somehow got respect from everyone. No shouting. No machinating. Just a certain look. Whereas me … well, less so. Failure to impress was a major reason I never got a job with anyone and ended up having to work for myself!

They say we are a good combination, me, being the mad, creative type, constantly spewing out ideas, and Barbara being the sensible one with the vast mind, pulling everything together and ensuring it all worked.

That’s most people’s belief but it’s not correct. I’m not, in fact, completely mad. I’m quite cautious really, and Barbara is not always sensible. But she has the ability to see possibilities where most don’t. And she likes taking risks. “Oh hell! … let’s just bloody do it” is her frequent response to ideas … even to my marriage proposal.

So, I put Barbara up for Greatest Woman in Wine. And note … I know well Jancis Robinson MW OBE, who would certainly get it on a general vote. But then … a CBE does trump an OBE!

Then there’s the other Barbara; the viticulteur.

At a time when farmers everywhere in Europe, maddened beyond belief by urban bureaucrats who wouldn’t know what to do with a pair of wellies if they saw one, are bringing cities to the point of starvation and collapse, I can lend them a whisper of support. Barbara decided to plant her own vineyard in 2003 because she craved the outdoor life. Her garden was no longer enough. She loves it out there. The larks above, the daylight, especially in midwinter, even the worms below, mean so much to her. But I can’t help but notice she spends more time inside in her office doing endless paperwork, than she does outside. Or it seems that way. Down with the rule-makers!

It’s pruning time now. Every single vine – she has 9,589 – must be pruned back from ten or so shoots to just the two which are best placed, which point in the right directions, look the fittest, and bear the correct number of buds to produce exactly the right amount of flavour-rich grapes next year. Imagine the fearsomely complex calculations each vine requires. It’s agricultural Sudoku with serious penalties for getting it wrong. Know any other agricultural pursuit so demanding? She does fiendish Sudoku, does Barbara, with no trouble, every night. But she dreams ‘vineyard’… Wyfold.

It will be May before there’s much in the way of green shoots in that vineyard. And that’s assuming late frosts don’t kill the tender buds. Barbara doesn’t sleep too well in May. No grape grower does. The nightmare; all that pruning work, all their crop, gone in one freezing hour of the night. But by pruning quite late on, Barbara will have delayed her buds from bursting and hopefully that way escaped nature’s cull.

Then she will spend summer with friends and helpers taming and gathering in the new shoots which rocket upwards, sideways, anyways at all, and she’ll tend her baby grapes like a mother, until it’s time to bring them in … usually end-of-October time. But they will be the best.

Harvest day she will be there in her shed, meticulously weighing the production of every single row to add to her 20 years of immaculate stats. I should mention that her first job at 23, was as the statistician who compiled all the viewing figures for ITV. A Top Job. Gave it up to rescue me!

So, yes, she’s my Outstanding Woman in Wine. And if she reads this, I might get a very nice supper; it’s her turn to cook.