NZ WINERIES - Key Persons
Alistair joined the team at New Zealand Wineries Limited in 2011, and previous to that he was at Constellation where he was involved in winemaking and operations roles.
He joined the wine industry in 1989, as a trainee winemaker at Montana in Auckland after completing a Food Technology degree.
At NZW Alistair manages the day to day operations of winery and staff, to ensure client satisfaction.
Job Titles:
- Compliance and Safety Officer
Anastasiia has 2 master's degrees in food technologies and engineering.
She has completed 15 vintages in different countries and regions being Slovakia, Germany, Ukraine, Turkey, and New Zealand). Anastasiia has significant experience in both the production area and lab within wineries. NZW is excited she is now moving from our Lab Manager to take care of our Health, Safety and Compliance.
Anastasiia's favourite wine is Champagne.
John joined the board of what was then Mud House Wine Group in 2006, after leaving his role as General Manager of Kim Crawford Wines.
When Mud House sold its brands and vineyards and retained the winemaking assets that form NZ Wineries today, John remained on the board and has been chairman since 2013. John, an accountant by trade, freely admits he is not employed for his winemaking skills but enjoys the product at the end of the cycle, especially Chardonnay!
Lou joined the Mud House Wine Group in 2011 and was heavily involved in the sale of the Mud House brands and vineyards to Accolade Wines before moving over to manage New Zealand Wineries in 2015.
Lou completed a Law (Hons) and Commerce Degree at Canterbury University and then moved through to gain her Chartered Accountant qualification. Lou's career prior to the wine industry has been broad with roles overseas in a Hospital Trust, and within New Zealand for NCR, NZ Herald, Jasmax and Amcor. Lou loves working with all the team at NZW to provide a premium winemaking experience for all our clients and growers. Lou's favourite wines are Chardonnay and Riesling which she enjoys with the team and friends.
Marcus graduated Lincoln University 2002 and joined the NZW team in 2003. During this time he developed and managed 400Ha of vineyards throughout the South Island as Vineyards Manager for the NZW Group for 8 years.
In 2008 Marcus and good friend Nigel George co-founded the KLIMA vine pruning system that has changed and continues to change the way people prune vineyards and drive the labour costs out of pruning for growers all over the world. As a grape grower himself Marcus has a passion for helping fellow grape growers to grow their businesses.
These days Marcus shares his time between NZW as a director the KLIMA business (trellis division) and his family business, Ormond Nurseries Ltd where he is General Manager. In his spare time Marcus coaches rugby and enjoys the outdoors as well as sharing a Chardonnay with friends.
Nick joined the New Zealand Wineries Limited team in 2013 as an Assistant Winemaker and was promoted this year into a Client Winemaker
Nick's first job was at Cloudy Bay as a cellar hand back in 2011.
Originally from England he moved to NZ in 2006 and after some travelling around he settled in Blenheim with his family.
Nick enjoys working in the client winemaking environment, as you get to see all the different approaches used just for one variety of grape.
Nick's most memorable wine experience is drinking 100 year old Champagne with his friends back in England.
Sonya has been providing financial services to NZW through The Mud House Wine Group for 11 years, but officially started in her current role in July 2014.
Born and bred in Marlborough, Sonya moved back here from Christchurch in 2009, to take on the Accountant role at The Mud House Wine Group.
She considers herself really lucky to be in a job she loves. Working with a great team of people makes for a great working week.
A wine industry highlight for Sonya is having opportunities to try many of the quality wines from NZW's clients.
Job Titles:
- Maintenance Manager
- Winery Maintenance Manager
Steven Ginders our maintenance manager joined us in July 2020 post-harvest, he previously spent twenty years working offshore based in both Singapore and Australia before returning home in 2017.
He brings onboard a high level of experience and expertise in both engineering & project management. He also brings along some fresh ideas into a new industry (for him) as his previous wine industry expertise was as a consumer.
He has taken on our original Riverlands winery site revamp and upgrade projects as well as driving critical equipment reliability upgrades. And alongside our winery general manager he has been fully involved with the new winery site in Kendrick Road that's located adjacent to the original winery. Energy saving projects were completed by Steven during late 2020 and they will continue into this year, as well as reductions in water usage and better waste management systems. Improvements to both our plant and systems allied with cost reductions would be his key drivers.
At New Zealand Wineries we are committed to quality and customer service, and take pride in making ‘your wine, your way'. We have a broad selection of temperature-controlled tanks ranging in size from 2500 litres to 270,000 litres. Our primary Marlborough winery site has four receival hoppers feeding 18 X 10 Tonne presses and 3 X 35 Tonne presses. This allows NZW to receive multiple parcels of fruit at a rate capable of coping with the most challenging of vintage conditions.
Our Kendrick Rd site offers state of the art 60 Tonne central membrane presses, continuous flotation and Omnia high solids crossflow. Kendrick Rd provides premium quality high-throughput processing of larger volumes into tanks ranging from 125,000 to 250,000 litres.
Our versatile range of winemaking expertise and modern equipment means we can cover the full gamut of processing options, from hand-picked barrel ferments, to large parcel flotation, and everything in between.