Wine, Women and Work: Inside One Of Australia's Best Workplaces

Great Place To Work speaks with award-winning winemaker Cate Looney about how, even in an industry that has been male dominated for literally hundreds of years, smart organisations make room for women.

SYDNEY, March 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Legend has it that when John Brown told his mother, Patricia, they wanted to name a range of wines after her, his mother stood still, and with a tear said, 'Well, boys, it better be bloody good.'

Pat, slight in stature but formidable in everything else, died in 2004 at 89, but not before she'd established something her all-male third generation probably didn't even clock at the time: a culture where women were structural.

Two decades on, Brown Brothers (founded in 1889, a member of Australia's First Families of Wine) has once again been named on the globally recognised 2026 Best Workplaces for Women Australia list.

The Women Winemakers Behind Brown Brothers' Wines

Cate Looney started at Brown Brothers as a winemaker around 20 years ago, and now she leads a team at the iconic Milawa winery and her Patricia Brut Pinot Noir Chardonnay took out 2025 Sparkling Wine of the Year in the Halliday Wine Companion Awards.

"I've had amazing opportunities," Cate says. "I started as a winemaker here, then moved to the senior winemaker role, and now I'm looking after teams that are male dominated. But I've never wanted gender to be a part of my progression and I don't believe it has been."

Looney describes a genuine absence of friction for her rise at Brown Brothers, which in the Australian wine industry is remarkable. Wine Australia shows that men and women graduate from oenology degrees in almost equal numbers, but only 16.7 per cent of winemaking roles are held by women, and ATO data indicates the gender pay gap for winemakers has doubled in under a decade to about $14,000 a year.ALSO READ: THE 50 AUSTRALIAN BEST WORKPLACES FOR WOMEN IN 2026

Looney credits the family structure as a genuine differentiator. "I think if you look at it from a history point of view, the company is 130-something years old, and even from the start there has been strong female leadership," she says.

"The fourth generation working actively in the business are nearly entirely women," says Looney. "And we've got the top wines named Patricia after the matriarch, because she was so heavily involved in shaping the culture when the business was growing."Katherine Brown, Patricia's granddaughter and the first female winemaker in the family, works alongside her sisters Caroline, who leads corporate communications, and Emma, Head of Innovation. Their cousins Eliza and Cynthia sit on the Brown Family Wine Group board, helping shepherd the business into its next era.

"When I first started here 20 years ago, the cellar team was all males," she says. "Now it's almost completely balanced, not through quotas, but by giving women a chance to come into the cellar, work hard, and thrive."  Pat Brown would probably say that's pretty bloody good.