Winepress - August 2024

SUCCESSION PLAN

A practical approach

The Glover family have created a wine business greater than the sum of its parts

KAT PICKFORD

FOR THE Glover family, the succession process has been more than a simple transition of ownership. It’s been a weaving together of skills, experience and assets gained independently across generations and interlaced over several years to create an entirely new family wine business.

In the mid-1980s when Owen Glover and his wife Wendy converted eight hectares of their Dillons Point dairy farm into grapes, they didn’t realise they were establishing a family legacy. The Marlborough wine industry was in its infancy and planting grapes “seemed like a fun thing to do”, Owen says. “It was cool and it had a bit of mystique to it, bringing lots of interesting, new people to town. We didn’t really know what we were doing, but everyone was extremely willing to share.”

Back then, the fertile soils at Dillons Point were considered too heavy and saline for growing grapes, but after a Dillons Point Sauvignon Blanc won the Air New Zealand Wine Awards in 1994, vineyard development expanded rapidly in the area and it’s now recognised as a sub-region within Marlborough, with its own, salty, tropical characteristics.

When they were planting their first vineyard, Owen and Wendy’s oldest son Ben was at boarding school in Christchurch. He, alongside his three siblings Lucy, Jack and Kate, enjoyed the freedom of growing up on the farm. Ben learned to drive aged 10, and by the age of 12 was driving his younger brother and sisters to the school bus stop every day. After school they would load the back of the truck up with hay for the cows and Ben would drive them home again.The farm was a popular spot for Ben and his teenage mates to have a few drinks, and he would often invite them over on the pretext of helping shift the irrigation. Back then, Ben had no idea what he wanted to do when he left school. “There was no pressure to return, no expectation that they should work on the farm,” Owen says.

After high school, Ben went to Canterbury University and completed a Bachelor in Commerce. It wasn’t until he studied a post-graduate Diploma in Viticulture and Winemaking at Lincoln University in 1994 that he found his calling. “I’m not an academic, I didn’t do well in chemistry, but having grown up on a farm, I had all the practical skills, and the creativity of winemaking really appealed to me,” Ben says. So rather than heading back to the family farm, Ben embarked on two years of globetrotting, with vintages in Marlborough, Australia, Italy and the United States as he pursued his newfound interest.

He returned to Marlborough in 1998 to work alongside Brent Marris at Wither Hills winery. When Brent sold the business to Lion Nathan in 2002, Ben stayed as chief winemaker, overseeing a period of rapid expansion. “It was like riding a Malibu on a never ending break,” he says. “You didn’t need a strategy, just a vision, it was all growth... we were onto a winner.”

Meanwhile Owen and Wendy had sold their dairy farm and decided to focus on grapes by expanding their Dillons Point vineyards and purchasing a planted vineyard on Mills and Ford Road. In 2007 Zephyr Wines was born, a family collaboration between Ben, his wife Susie, brother Jack, and Owen and Wendy. Their first vintage was crafted by Ben in a corner of the Wither Hills winery. While his employers knew about his little side hustle, he couldn’t publicly associate himself with the label, so Owen and Wendy were roped in as “surrogate winemakers” and to provide a face for the wine overseas.

Despite being made in the shadows, Zephyr Wines has since expanded to meet demand. After leaving Wither Hills and taking on the chief winemaking role at Mud House Wines in 2013, Ben was finally able to become the public face of Zephyr Wines. In 2016, after almost a decade of corporate winemaking, he threw in the towel to focus exclusively on Zephyr Wines.

In 2017 Ben and Susie bought 14ha of the original family vineyard from Owen and Wendy and promptly converted to organic farming, becoming BioGro certified in 2020.

The balance of Owen and Wendy’s vineyards are leased exclusively to the wine label. Then in 2019 “thinking with our hearts not our heads”, Ben and Susie jumped at a “once-in-alifetime opportunity” and bought the Seresin winery near Renwick in a joint venture with a couple of partners. They renamed it The Coterie; a home for Zephyr Wines and an organic winemaking facility for like-minded independent wine brands.

While Ben has put his hand up to take on the family property, their succession journey is still far from over, Owen says. “Succession is difficult for every family, particularly where land is involved because there is never enough capital,” he says. “Generally farming is asset rich and cash poor, so you need a candidate who is not only capable but is willing to take on the financial burden. The main challenge is finding a fair and equitable solution for all the children that won’t cause a family feud – because you must still have Christmas together!”

Finances and family politics aside, Ben and Susie value Owen’s ongoing involvement, particularly in the vineyard. “He’s got an amazing skill set from a lifetime of farm work and his knowledge is invaluable, we’re lucky to have him,” Susie says. And the family story behind Zephyr Wines is invaluable in the marketplace. “The integrated story behind our wines, about it being a family business and family land, is so important because customers want authenticity and that personal connection,” Ben says. “Being able to say ‘we’ and ‘us’ and ‘ours’ when we’re overseas talking about our wines gives us a uniqueness that people want to hear and be a part of.”