“Failure is really an opportunity to start over more intelligently. Without failing in a big way, I would not be successful.”
– Deborah Brenner, Founder and CEO, Women of the Vine & Spirits
Starting a business and making it successful is difficult. For a woman, making the cut in the traditional, male-dominated wine industry was even harder. Deborah Brenner, however, was prepared to put in the hard work to promote women in the wine industry. Her passionate and relentless efforts, unfortunately, met with failure. Not one to cower down, Deborah persevered against the humongous odds to eventually emerge a winner.
Losing Big and Learning From Failure
Deborah left her corporate life in technology in NYC after a painful divorce to pursue her passion in wine. She wanted to champion women’s cause in the male-dominated wine industry. Little did she know all the toil would amount to nothing. She says, “Ultimately, all the money, blood, sweat and (a lot) of tears could not foster women in the wine industry the way I had hoped.” She had to shelve her brand, Women of the Vine.
Those were desperate times. In Deborah’s words, “At the time it felt like I lost everything, lost my life savings, stuck with half a million dollars in debt and my house was in foreclosure.” She still, however, had the burning desire to give women a collective voice and wanted to be an advocate for change. “I couldn’t let the good old boys club win,” she insisted.
Starting Over with a New Perspective
Beaten and bruised, but not defeated, Deborah took another leap of faith in 2014. With a renewed commitment to bring empowerment to women, she started planning for a trade conference in Napa, the heart of the Napa Valley wine region.
During the inaugural conference in 2015, Deborah was broke but she was on stage with a brave face. Her passion for empowering women was much greater than her strife. She was broke, but her spirit wasn’t broken.
Met with great success, the one-off event has now emerged into year-round trade organization with international members that includes women leaders and representatives of corporations and world-renowned brands in the wine and spirits industry.
Bringing Change to the Wine Industry
With the Fourth Annual Women of the Vine & Spirits Global Symposium taking place this week, the journey that saw Deborah striving to overcome failure and adversity and fulfilling her passion is finally paying off. Fighting adversity, her passion for igniting change in the industry and working towards gender parity remains unchanged even as she reinvented her business. Looks like she has finally found a winning recipe with wine.
