Yealands - General Manager Viticulture and Winery

Every morning when I drive to work and I drive up over the rise and I see the vineyard ahead of me and on a clear day I can see out over Cook Straight over to Wellington.

It's incredibly scenic, there's something magical about this site. This is solely owned by New Zealanders, yeah it's a good fit, it's community-based. If you want to understand a true New Zealand wine company, then this is it. It's not owned by one person, it's owned by everybody that has power or pays a power bill in Marlborough.

Coming into this role they can have the confidence that they've got the expertise on the ground in winemaking, production and viticulture. Someone with a good knowledge base — obviously it's got to go across winemaking and the vineyard and so a good base in all of the technical aspects of that, and I guess personally someone that I can learn from. It's just really providing support and help to allow us to achieve our goals.

We're very entrepreneurial and sort of I guess have that kind of spirit of starting off as a family business and really now sort of transitioning into adolescence, let's say. We're still very creative and innovative in the way that we think and the way that we operate.

We are a bit off the beaten track, it's a bit further to come, so there's a bit of camaraderie that comes with being out here. Yeah, it's just a pretty special place to be. You'll be hard-pressed to find better environments to work in.

Find out more about Yealands Wines.