Great Place To Work speaks with award-winning winemaker Cate Looney about how, even in an industry that has been dominated by men for hundreds of years, smart organizations are making room for women.
SYDNEY, March 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Legend has it that when John Brown told his mother, Patricia, that they wanted to name a line of wines after him, his mother stopped and said with a tear, “Well, boys, it better be really good.”
Pat, small in stature but formidable in everything else, died in 2004 at age 89, but not before establishing something that her all-male third generation probably didn’t even realize at the time: a culture where women were structural.
Two decades later, Brown Brothers (established in 1889, part of Australia’s first wine families) has once again been named to the globally recognized list. 2026 List of Best Workplaces for Women in Australia.
The women winemakers behind Brown Brothers wines
Cate Looney started at Brown Brothers as a winemaker about 20 years ago, and she now leads a team at the iconic Milawa Vineyard and its Patricia Brut Pinot Noir Chardonnay won Sparkling Wine of the Year 2025 at the Halliday Wine Companion Awards.
“I’ve had some incredible opportunities,” Cate says. “I started as a winemaker here, then moved up to senior winemaker, and now I’m looking after male-dominated teams. But I never wanted gender to be a part of my progression and I don’t think it is.”
Looney describes a real lack of friction during his rise at Brown Brothers, which is remarkable in the Australian wine industry. Wine Australia shows that men and women are graduating with enology degrees in almost equal numbers, but only 16.7 per cent of winemaking positions are held by women, and ATO data indicates the gender pay gap for winemakers has doubled in less than a decade to around $14,000 a year.
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Looney sees family structure as a real differentiator. “I think if you look at it from a historical perspective, the company is some 130 years old and, from the beginning, there has been strong female leadership,” she says.
“The fourth generation actively working in the company is almost entirely women,” Looney says. “And we have the best wines named Patricia in honor of the matriarch, because she was very involved in shaping the culture as the company was growing.”
Katherine Brown, Patricia’s granddaughter and the family’s first female winemaker, works alongside her sisters Caroline, Corporate Communications Manager, and Emma, Innovation Manager. Their cousins Eliza and Cynthia serve on the Brown Family Wine Group board of directors, helping lead the company into its next era.
“When I started here 20 years ago, the winery team was all men,” she says. “Now it’s almost completely balanced, not through quotas, but by giving women a chance to get into the cellar, work hard and thrive.” Pat Brown would probably say that’s pretty good.
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SOURCE A Great Place to Work
