Summary

This image is one of ten photographs of Katrina and Natalie Pizzini of Pizzini Wines at Whitfield in the King Valley, Victoria, taken by Catherine Forge on 21 July 2017 as part of the Invisible Farmer Project, which included two oral history interviews with Katrina and Natalie.

The image depicts Katrina and Natalie holding a photograph of Katrina's mother and father-in law, Roberta and Rosa Pizzini. Roberto and Rosa immigrated to Australia in the 1950s and established a family-owned tobacco company, together with Roberto's brothers and wives, in the Ovens and King Valley regions. In the 1970s when the tobacco industry started to decline, the family decided to begin diversifying by planting grape seedlings, with their first Riesling grapes planted in 1978. Rosa Pizzini (1924-2017) had passed away a few months before her daughter Katrina and grandaughter Natalie were interviewed by Catherine Forge for the Invisible Farmer Project.

Katrina Pizzini was born in 1954 and became involved with farming when she married Fred Pizzini in her late teens and became an integral part of the Pizzini family farm and business in the King Valley, which at this stage was producing tobacco. Over the years Katrina and Fred had four children, and Katrina balanced domestic work, motherhood and on-farm labour. In the 1970s to early 1980s the tobacco farm gradually ceased production and the tobacco was replaced with wine grapes. Katrina describes her work on the vineyard as 'hands on'; her responsibilities included outdoor work planting poles and training vines as well as indoor work such as accounting and bookkeeping.

Natalie Pizzini was born in Canberra in 1972 and worked on the family farm as a child and teenager. She studied environmental science at university before finding herself back in Whitfield working at the family's restaurant, the Mountain View Hotel. It is here that she began honing her skills in food tourism and marketing, which has continued to be her main role with Pizzini Wines.

Throughout both interviews, Katrina and Natalie reflect on their roles in the family business, the importance of value-adding and tourism, the influence of their mother and grandmother Rosa Pizzini (1924-2017) and the highlights and challenges that they've experienced as women working in a male-dominated wine industry.

This photograph is part of Museums Victoria's Invisible Farmer Project Collection. The Invisible Farmer Project was the largest ever study of Australian women on the land, uncovering the histories and stories of Australian women in agriculture. It began as a pilot project (2015-2016) and evolved into a three year (2017-2020) nation-wide partnership between rural communities, academic, government and cultural organisations, funded by the Australian Research Council.

Description of Content

Two women standing in front of a vineyard. They are holding a gilt picture frame containing a portrait photograph of a man and a woman.

Physical Description

Digital photograph

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