March 6-10, 2024
International Women’s Day has been celebrated on March 8th worldwide since 1909, with a focus on working women’s achievements and issues. In a working environment which sees about 10% of the global wine industry as female lead winemakers, Karen Steinwachs, co-founder of the annual Women Winemakers Celebration, said, “Santa Barbara County sees a much higher percentage of women winemakers than most regions in the world – with nearly double the average. We work hard, but also like to play hard and give back to the community, so are thrilled to continue to celebrate our industry and region at this annual celebration.”
The four-day celebration will bring together a varied sampling of the County’s female winemakers in a show of support for each other, and other working women, world-wide; those who toil and labor while honing and elevating their craft in their workplace, while also balancing work-lives with family and community service.
Since the very early days of the Women Winemakers Celebration, the winemakers have been joined by our colleagues in the culinary world. An old saying in our parts is that “wine is food to be consumed with food”, and indeed we are of one voice that the vino is always better and enhanced with something tasty from a kitchen. Our annual celebration features chefs and cooks, restaurants, specialty food purveyors, bakers, caterers, cheesemongers, pastry chefs, gourmet product producers, chocolatiers and more. Each year they seem to outdo each other and truly do elevate this event, all in the spirit of International Women’s Day, the camaraderie of fellow ladies in the food and wine industry and support of the designated charitable organization of the year.
Chef Brooke, co-founder of our annual celebration, suggested we add “Culinarians” to our event title and so it is! Saluté!
