Pam Dunsford blazes a trail of women-in-wine firsts after breaking down the Roseworthy college barrier in 1972
Pam Dunsford won a Churchill scholarship that she spent in Champagne where she was the first woman to be employed by Krug at vintage time.
Pam Dunsford was awarded the Maurice O’Shea Award in 2022 for her 40-year-plus contribution to the Australia wine industry.
Dunsford was a trailblazer for women in the Australian wine industry. Her firsts started in 1972 when, despite being opposed by the principal, she entered the all-male Roseworthy Agriculture College in South Australia to study oenology.
More persistence saw her become the first woman in an important winemaking position in a large company, first female winemaker to become a wine-show judge, first woman to be employed by Krug, and among the first Australian women wine educators and winemaking consultants.
Mount Barker-born Dunsford had her secondary education at Walford School and became interested learning about wine in 1969-72, while studying agricultural science at Adelaide University. With degrees in bio chemistry and horticulture, Dunsford survived Roseworthy where she lived in the infectious diseases ward, away from the 180 males students in a “post-schoolboy environment”.
Dunsford had a more fulfilling wine study during her masters degree at Davis, University of California, from 1978-79. From Roseworthy, Pam went to Wynns winery in McLaren Vale from 1974-86 where Morgan Yeatman, Bob Williams and Brian Walsh taught her about developing the palate of the wine. When Dunsford became manager of Wynns' Glenloth winery in 1984, a shop steward wouldn't take orders from a woman. Instructions were relayed via a foreman.
Dunsford was part the wine technology pioneered by Wynns and its sponsorship of the Master of Wine group from Europe in 1985. After leaving Wynns, Dunsford gained a Churchill scholarship that she spent in Champagne where she was the first woman to be employed by Krug at vintage time.
Returning to Australia, she became a consultant and lectured at Roseworthy and the hotel school at Regency Park. In 1987, Dunsford became a consultant and later general manager of Chapel Hill winery in McLaren Vale.