Irina Santiago-Brown
LEADING THE WAY
Dr Irina Santiago-Brown is a world leader in sustainable viticulture. She also makes small batches of wine with her husband in McLaren Vale.
When she married fellow winemaker Dudley Brown in 2014, Irina wore brown work boots to her wedding. The boots were a symbol of her major life change from high-level government employee in Brazil to viticulturist and winemaker in South Australia’s McLaren Vale. It’s a life she loves, tending to the vines, crafting acclaimed wines and helping people around Australia manage their vineyards in a more sustainable way.
Breaking new ground halfway around the world
In her home country of Brazil, Irina was the Special Adviser in International Relations and Foreign Investment to the governor of the state of Bahia, home to 15 million people. But as she approached her 40s she was ready for a change. Although her mother thought she was crazy, in 2009 she came to Australia to do a Master of Viticulture and a PhD in Sustainability in Viticulture.
Irina met Dudley the following year when she interviewed with the McLaren Vale Grape Wine and Tourism Association to develop the Sustainable Australia Winegrowing program (which is now being used around Australia). She got the job and three years later the pair got married. Irina also joined Dudley at Inkwell Wines.
Inkwell is all about organic, hands-on viticulture and small-batch, minimal-intervention winemaking. Sustainability underpins everything – but producing delicious wines is just as important.
“I’m not going to drink a wine because it’s been farmed in the most sustainable way,” says Irina. “But at the same time, we are in a world now where if we’re not sustainable, we won’t be able to keep doing what we’re doing, or improve what we’re doing over time … I think sustainability needs to be the pathway to increase quality.”
Irina’s favourite place is in the vineyard, and in 2015, she was named Viticulturist of the Year at the Australian Women in Wine Awards. But ultimately what drives Irina is a chance to be involved in the entire winemaking process, to produce something that brings people joy.
“When you walk in the vineyard and smell the grapes and the canopy, and then two or three years later you drink a glass of wine from a specific block and you recognise all those scents… it’s just fantastic,” she says.
“I think sustainability needs to be the pathway to increase wine quality.” – Irina Santiago-Brown
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