Girl power in the grape vines | Hunter Valley vignerons | Women in wine: their secret weapons

What do these Hunter Valley winemakers bring to the table? More than you’d think!

Liz Riley, viticulturist, environmentalist and wine consultant, is about to reveal the secret of her success.

Soaking up a spectacular Hunter Valley vista from the cellar door of Scarborough Wine Co with Scrappy the Jack Russell trying to steal the show, Riley and her sister-in-law Sally Scarborough are delivering a verbal volley on what women winemakers do differently.

Hunter Valley views. Photo: Josh Vincent Cessnock Council

Says Riley, “They’re solutions-focused, pragmatic, good at listening and attuned to the end game. They’ll pick up the phone and ask questions.”

Adds Scarborough, “Women tend not to be wedded to tradition, to The Way of doing things.”

That’s when Riley declares her secret weapon. “Freshly baked muffins,” she says, “Raspberry and white chocolate.”

For Riley and Scarborough success is all about relationship-building, get-togethers, networking and collaboration. Keep the muffins coming and when there’s a job to be done, people will be there for you in a heartbeat.

The life of Riley

Acclaimed Hunter Valley wine consultant and networker, Liz Riley. Photo: Chris Elfes.

Riley has been recognised for her expertise and pioneering innovation in the vineyard, including the mainstream use of sunscreen application on vines to preserve fruit quality in drought and heatwaves. She was awarded the 2023 Outstanding Contribution by Individual Award at the Hunter Valley Legends Awards for coordinating the aerial spraying response after the floods of 2022.

In 2021, she was the first woman to win the Graham Gregory Award, acknowledging a 30-year contribution to the wine industry. She received the Award for Excellence from the Hunter Valley Wine and Tourism Association for her response to the bushfires of 2020.

Riley is married to Scarborough winemaker Jerome Scarborough; she oversees several vineyards in the Hunter and has her own consultancy, Vitibits. The Hunter Valley vineyards produce some of Australia’s finest wines.

A 2024 report, Women in the Australian Wine Sector, funded by Wine Australia, revealed an increase in the representation of the women in CEO, winemaking, viticulture, and marketing over the past decade. Nationally, the number of women in a winemaking role is now 16.7 per cent, an increase of 7.9 per cent, and the number of women in a viticulture role is now 21.5 per cent, an increase of 11.5 per cent.

Winemaker of the year

Over at First Creek, Liz Jackson (aka Silkman), chief winemaker since 2008, is presiding over a tasting of several chardonnays, a shiraz and a shiraz pinot. We sip and debate climate change, orange wine, how pregnancy affects taste, and how a winemaker masters the spitting technique.

Jackson, who started out as a lab technician at Brokenwood Wines in 1999, has twice been named Winemaker of the Year at the Hunter Valley Legends and Wine Industry Awards. In August she was named 2025 Winemaker of the Year by Halliday Wine Companion.

2025 winemaker of the year, Liz Jackson, in the barrel room at First Creek. Photo: Elfes Images

First Creek started life in the 1990s as a contract winemaker, tapping into the Pitt Street farmer boom, making tiny batches of semillon for dozens of clients. Today they source quality fruit from prominent vineyards across the Hunter Valley and other parts of NSW.

“I have the freedom to show what I can do,” Jackson says. “We get to play around the edges.”

Women, Jackson says, are very organised when it comes to running a facility of scale. “They are thoughtful and considered about the process. They come at things from a different way.”

At Brokenwood Wines, where we stop for hand-rolled potato gnocchi cloaked in a chardonnay cream sauce and a zucchini salad to die for, there’s a 70/30 split of women to men. Says winemaker Kate Sturgess, “There are some really strong, high-level winemaking and viticultural women throughout the Valley who have set the tone and kept the boys on their toes. This makes it easier for everyone else coming up in the industry.”

Zesty zucchini at the Brokenwood Wines restaurant, The Wood. Photo: Susan Skelly

Tulloch trailblazers

At Tulloch Wines, Julia Tulloch is celebrating her 80^th birthday. The elegant matriarch and other winemakers’ wives were hospitality trailblazers. They pioneered wine and food matching by being great hostesses in the days before dishwashers.

Busloads of sales reps would arrive expecting a three-course lunch, Julia recalls. She’d make chicken liver pâté, beef fillet poached in beef stock, crunchy Hasselback potatoes, Caesar salad and the almond and date dessert called “food for the gods”.

Three members of the Tulloch wine family, from left, Christina, mother Julia and sister Justina. Photo: Susan Skelly

This year, Tulloch Wines celebrates 130 years. Christina Tulloch, great granddaughter of the original founder and youngest daughter of Julia and Jay Tulloch is now Tulloch Wines CEO. She was the first female president of the Hunter Valley Wine and Tourism Association and was awarded the 2023 Graham Gregory Award for leadership at the NSW Wine Awards.

It wasn’t that long ago, says Christina, that WA’s Vanya Cullen was the only woman winemaker. “We have a fair way to go,” she says, “but there are now many more women in viticulture.

“There’s that great saying, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’. If you never saw females in those roles, you never imagined you could be a winemaker.”

Mentored by legends

Sasha Degen’s parents are accidental vignerons. Driving through the Pokolbin countryside in 1997 they spotted an auction in progress for an 11-hectare block of land that contained a shipping container, a donkey and a llama. Thomas Degen’s spur-of-the-moment bid was life changing.

“My parents, then in their mid-50s, were studying MBAs so they switched to viticulture,” says Sasha. “Degen single vineyard was their work experience, and they planted the three signature Hunter Valley grapes: semillon, chardonnay and shiraz.

Hunter Valley winemaker and holiday stay specialist Sasha Degen with her miniature pinto, Caviar. Photo: Susan Skelly

“They were so fortunate that there were legends of the Hunter to mentor them then – Len Evans was alive and Bruce Tyrell was very helpful. I became their apprentice.”

Thomas and Jean Degen planted the vineyard in September 2001, and the cellar door opened 12 years later. “What we have now is the smallest commercial vineyard in the Hunter Valley and we produce about 3000 bottles of any of those three varieties, and blends as well,” says Sasha.

“Everything we do is on a small scale. We want to be very, very good at being very, very small.”

Sweet treats at Degen Estate. Photo: Susan Skelly

They’re not so small on the accommodation front, however. Sasha, whose background is in publishing, is today owner and general manager of Hunter Valley Stays Australia (15 residences, accommodating 600 guests per night) which was awarded 2024 Accommodation Operator of the Year at the Hunter Valley Legends Awards.

The property is now 22 hectares and the llama and the donkey are two miniature pinto therapy horses, Truffles and Caviar.

Back in black

Conclude a day in the Hunter at Lisa McGuigan’s cellar door, Vamp, designed by Newcastle architect Dominic Warland. Its medieval theme reflects McGuigan’s desire to stand out. Styled in chainmail curtaining, jousting helmets, black metal, snakeskin-like countertop, and pewter wine labels, Vamp is as gothic as McGuigan’s dress code.

The gothic interiors of Vamp, Lisa McGuigan’s edgy cellar door in Pokolbin. Photo: Supplied

We’re drinking a cocktail that mixes lemon sorbet, mint and the prosecco McGuigan swore she’d never make, paired with oysters topped with rosé sorbet or vodka-infused mango. Later, wines from her four collections will be matched with cheesecake shots.

McGuigan launched Tempus Two in 1997, and in 2010 established Lisa McGuigan Wines for which she sources fruit from all over, to be magicked into premium wine in the Hunter Valley.

Of her latest wine showcase she says, “Vamp brings together my love of wine, fashion, design and five-star hospitality. I want visitors to feel like they are in my lounge room.”

The centrepiece of that lounge room is the crystal chandelier by Melbourne lighting designer Christopher Boots. Says Dominic Warland, “Lisa was willing to put money into things that go ‘wow’.”

Girl power, wow power – the Hunter Valley is full of it.

Lisa McGuigan blends wine, fashion, design and hospitality to create cellar door theatre.  Photo: Supplied.

A DAY IN THE VINEYARDS

GETTING THERE: The Hunter Valley is a two-hour drive north of Sydney. A train takes 3 hours and 15 minutes. There are connecting buses to the Hunter Valley from Maitland, Newcastle and Morisset.

STAYING THERE: Oaks Cypress Lakes Resort is a 4.5-star property in Pokolbin. It has spacious villas and suites set in bushland, two swimming pools, a spa, sauna, gym, tennis courts, and a golf course. The resort caters for weddings receptions, corporate functions and more intimate stays. A one-bedroom villa starts from $188 per night.

EXPLORE MORE: winecountry.com.au

The writer was a guest of Hunter Valley Wine & Tourism Association