The beginning

1970’s

Growing up in the ‘70s, in a Hawke’s Bay food and wine-loving home meant wine was always served with dinner and at parties. Listening in, there were always stories of special wines, vineyards and winemakers.

On road trips often the obligatory catch up with the eccentric winemakers tasting wines in the dimly lit cellars and tasting rooms. Some of the characters included Denis Irwin and James Millton from Gisborne and Denis Kasza and Kim Salonius from Hawkes Bay. I still remember some of the wild tales and stories…

1980’s

Meanwhile I was getting into growing beans and other vegies and brewing beer. Some pretty successful brews but with older brothers not following through with ‘a dollar per tallie’ cash flow became a real issue…

1990’s

After High School I packed my bags for university to study plant biology, ecology and geology and but not a sign of a single grapevine.

A degree in hand and a 2 year overseas surfing adventure to Tahiti and California with my buddy Justin ended up with us finding ourselves on the tube in London with our surfboards.

Within forty eight hours in old blighty I met the love of my life , Rebecca. Together we shared a love of food and travel and were soon to experience an array of European wines although the selection at the off-license in Brixton was pretty limited…

We bought a rickety old blue van and had many an adventure to France. We happened to met an Aussie guy who was about to embark on a trip to France to work ‘le vendange’ and said he was sure we would be welcome to join the team and just to call Jean.

We called Jean De St Charles aka Le grand fromage and before we knew it we had a start date at Chateau Le Bluizard in Beaujolais. I was promoted to carting the hand harvested grapes up and down the hills in a one hundred year old wooden wheelbarrow which nearly killed me. By night we drank aged wines from the cellar of variable quality by candlelight in the Chateau grounds. Life couldn’t be better at those times and every wine was accompanied by stories of past vintages, storms or sunshine and previous winemakers and vintage workers. It was then that I filled out my application to study for a Bachelor of Viticulture at EIT, right there at the Chateau in our blue van. My mind was made up..

2000’s

We were back home in time for the ‘millenium’ and my new studies. A close friend Sean O’Regan had come across some old vine Chardonnay at harvest and before I knew it we were hand harvesting, basket pressing and filling an old French barrel in our flat garage. The garage was cut into the earth of Napier hill so made a perfect possie. Anyone who visited got the obligatory garage tasting, a bit like now…

Our 2000 Garage Chardonnay became the wine of abundance at parties, Sean in particular would turn up with a bottle between every finger! It was rich and ripe and was layered with fresh peach, fig and nutty notes and every party was a good party that year!

The Chardonnay quickly impressed on us the power of amazing grapes to produce AMAZING wine! From there several more Garage wines were made at Lighthouse rd with Ma and Pa (Annie and Nick) and our good friends Murry and Rhonda Trower. The 2002 a classic Hawkes Bay Bordeaux blend which was a beauty.

With a Viti degree under my belt, and 2 years working for Sacred Hill developing the Deerstalkers vineyard in the Gimblett Gravels, our dreams of a year in France became a reality. I worked in both the vineyards and wineries in the Languedoc and the Rhone Valley. I wouldn’t change a thing about this time in France and it was such an amazing time to soak up the winegrowing and winemaking traditions and techniques.

Next stop was Vietnam where Rebecca taught at an international school and I imported and sold wines from around the world. We lived in the centre of Saigon and lapped up every minute of this exotic city. A chance meeting with Sir George Fistonich turned into a job offer and we were homeward bound again but this time with a baby on board. Rebecca was pregnant with Sophia our first born.

I arrived at Villa Maria in time for the 2007 harvest and had an incredible 15 years with the company. George always made the whole viticulture team and wider business feel part of the success of the winemaking and the business. A man with incredible vision and focus on producing world class wines. India was born during the 2010 vintage our second harvest baby.