“We raise our glasses and leave”: Isabelle Perraud, feminist winemaker

Vauxrenard (Rhône), private correspondence.

"In my life, I quickly associated alcohol and drunken men with violence," says winemaker Isabelle Perraud when asked about her relationship with the bottle. Behind her thick-framed glasses, dark memories are revealed. As a child, she saw firsthand the damage caused by alcohol. Marked by the aggressive behavior of the drunken customers her mother received in her bistro, she still keeps wine away from her glass today. And yet.

When she reached her twenties, she joined her husband, Bruno, in the vineyards, with whom she had managed the Côtes de la Molière estate in Vauxrenard (Rhône) since 1989. Very quickly, she gave new economic life to the company during the Beaujolais crisis at the end of the 1990s. After the organic conversion of its plots in 2002, the estate took the turn towards unadulterated wine , of which Isabelle, in her role as vice-president of the Vin méthode nature union, is one of the rare ambassadors.

This abstemious winemaker knows her trade, from pruning to bottling, but prefers to escape with her own herbal infusions. A self-assured stance that could have hindered her quest for legitimacy in a still-conservative environment. And as if that weren't enough, she's opening it wide! Not the bottle, but her mouth and voice, to denounce sexist and sexual violence (SSG) in the wine industry.

"My feminism was really born reading King Kong Theory . Everything is obvious, everyone should read it," summarizes Isabelle Perraud. She regularly delves back into Virginie Despentes 's work when doubts set in and energy falters. This activist winemaker shares with the author a birth year, 1969, a common language, a solid feminism, self-constructed by sedimentation. A foundation that led Isabelle to create the association and the Instagram page Paye ton pinard, so that the women of the vine can raise their heads.

Since its launch in 2020, the association has received nearly 500 testimonies. Isabelle has become the voice of those who suffer in the silence of the cellars, but who have chosen to speak out and are paying the price. Because once the code of silence is broken, there's still the legal hurdle to climb. Isabelle knows all about that. In August 2024, she was convicted on appeal by the Bourges court for defamation after relaying VSS testimonies via Paye ton pinard, naming a Sancerre winemaker. An emblematic case that inaugurated the #MeToo movement in wine.

While the prosecution acknowledged the winemaker's good faith, it accused her of a lack of caution regarding the presumption of innocence. She must pay a fine of 36,000 euros. Exhausted by this "gag procedure," she decided not to appeal to the Court of Cassation. She even considered leaving the world of wine, through which she had emancipated herself, but whose old sexist reflexes disgust her. But Isabelle stands firm for all these women who confide in her.

At the beginning of April, in Belleville-en-Beaujolais (Rhône), she organized the first edition of the On lève son verre et on se casse (We raise our glass and leave) trade fair. This variation of a famous phrase by Virginie Despentes was a rallying cry to which 49 winemakers and distillers from Ardèche, Alsace, Gaillac, Touraine, etc. responded. Grouped under the banner Paye ton pinard (Pay your pinard), they were able to celebrate their work and express the excesses of their profession that they want to get rid of.

The organizer didn't want to leave anyone behind by offering fair prices and not setting any specifications: "Whether they were harvesters or merchants, married to a winemaker or not, you just had to be a woman to participate." Exhibitors and visitors discussed grape varieties, geology, maceration, indigenous yeasts... But you only had to listen carefully to move from the wine-growing vocabulary to that of activism. The wine flowed, but it wasn't the wine that loosened tongues. It was anger, a little, and above all the security and goodwill that this space offered.

Today, Paye ton pinard is entering a new chapter. Thanks to the European Union's Daphné program, the association will expand on a larger scale and raise awareness of VSS through the publication of guides, presentations at wine schools, and by investing in new social media. Because the winemakers gathered around Isabelle are raising a glass, of course, but also a big middle finger, giving the fight its flavor.