Carolyn Wente’s lifelong leadership as a woman in a male-dominated industry, faith in her family business and level head during difficult times makes her a true wine industry legend.
Carolyn Wente’s early days running the family winery with her two brothers were clouded by death, taxes, an earthquake and fierce competition. But she was up to the challenge, something that she proved time and again over her 40-year career with the Livermore-based winery Carl H. Wente founded in 1883. Today, the Wente operation is the longest, continuously family-owned and operated winery in the United States.
In the early 1980s Carolyn was among the first women to take a leading ownership and management role at a major California winery. Today, she is the first woman recognized with an American Wine Legend Wine Star Award.
Carolyn was instrumental in reshaping the family business, which at the time was respected for viticultural and enological leadership but perceived as stodgy in the marketplace. Beginning at age 25, rising to the role of CEO, and now serving as 4th generation winegrower and board chairman, Carolyn took seriously the job of burnishing Wente Family Estates’ brand and preparing to turn it over in good health to the fifth generation.
In the 1980s and 1990s Carolyn lead several initiatives in direct-to-consumer marketing that hundreds of other wineries are following today. She began bringing more consumers to Livermore with a new culinary garden, a restaurant serving farm-to-table cuisine, a golf course designed by Greg Norman and outdoor concerts by big names like James Taylor, Cheryl Crow and Elvis Costello.
With Carolyn in charge of sales and marketing, oldest brother Eric heading wine production, and next oldest brother Philip managing the vineyards and a cattle operation, these fourth-generation siblings reimagined their family business. Carolyn’s leadership over the decades has helped keep Wente wines popular and the winery in the family’s hands, while so many other family wineries were sold to the highest bidders.
The death of their father, Karl Wente, in 1977 landed the responsibility of management on the siblings while Carolyn was studying at Stanford University. Her brothers were already working for the winery and waited to ask for Carolyn’s help until she had finished school and worked for Crocker Bank as a financial analyst for a few years.
When brother Philip eventually called, Carolyn laughed, responding, “Well, I’m not sure what I know about sales and marketing.” But Philip insisted, arguing, “Carolyn, you grew up doing it. I was always so jealous. Mom and Dad always took you on business trips [to meet] distributors, retailers and restaurateurs,” Carolyn remembers him saying.
The obstacles at first were many. Their father’s untimely death left an unexpected taxation burden to overcome. An earthquake in 1981 damaged 90% of the winery’s stainless-steel tanks. The Wente portfolio was wrong for the times, consisting of 90% white wines while their ever-multiplying competitors were shifting to reds.
Since the Wente wines are sourced primarily from their own vineyards, a costly transition to red-wine varieties began. An emphasis on export markets grew, too, so that today they take about 35% of Wente-produced wine.
“I think being able to make shifts in our vision of where we wanted the company to go were big milestones,” she says.
When asked about her experience as one of the few women wine executives at the time, she says, “Internally, my two brothers were great champions of me.” When Eric became chair, and she stepped up to CEO, they were both extremely supportive.
“Externally, I would say. From when I joined the business, I was an anomaly out in the marketplace. Going into distributors and sitting in distributor meetings, I was probably the only woman in the room,” Carolyn adds. “There were practically no women distributor sales reps; there were very few women-owned companies.”
Women in viticulture, in winery labs and cellars started becoming more common, but she connected more with women on the culinary side of the food and beverage business, being a founding member of the San Francisco chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier. “That’s one way I became more and more active and integrated into championing younger women, or other women, to hopefully make an impact. And boy, today, it’s just night and day from when I started out.”
She points out that Wente Family Estates today qualifies as a woman-owned company, with her nieces Christine, Jordan, Aly and Niki all involved in addition to herself, tipping the scales away from her brothers and nephew Karl, chief winemaker.
“But,” she adds, “you can’t just have a conversation about women. The other half of the world, roughly, are men. And they’re equally our consumer, our work family, our community.”
For her lifelong leadership as a woman in a male-dominated industry, for her faith in a family business and cool head during difficult times, Wine Enthusiast is proud to honor Carolyn Wente as an American Wine Legend.
Published: October 31, 2023
