Generation Y-ine

Ruby McManaway is making her mark

KAT DUGGAN

RUBY MCMANAWAY went from a gap year before university to a promising winemaking career, taking out second place in Marlborough’s 2021 Young Winemaker competition.

Her U-turn into the wine industry came just as she was planning to leave Marlborough for studies at the University of Canterbury, and opted to instead take a year off to earn some money.

“I kind of had a bit of a panic thinking ‘what am I doing?’, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do or whether I wanted to go and spend three years at uni straight away,” Ruby says. She landed a cadetship with Constellation Brands New Zealand and “shocked” her friends and family when she started working in the vineyard. “It’s not what anyone would have picked at all,” she says.

Growing up, Ruby and her sister resisted the idea of a career in winemaking, despite their dad’s best efforts to point them in that direction. “The cadetship gave me a realisation that I could do something and I didn’t have to go to university; I could have a gap year, earn some money and then at the end of that first year, if I wanted to, I could still go to uni,” she says.

She did eventually go back to study, but instead enrolled in Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology’s (NMIT) Bachelor of Viticulture and Winemaking, studying online while also working full-time.

The structure of her cadetship meant Ruby spent six months working in the vineyard, and six months in the winery - the latter capturing her attention for a potential career. “The winery was definitely where I wanted to be and make my mark in the wine industry.”

Following her cadetship, Ruby spent a further two years working with Constellation Brands, before joining Yealands Estate as a cellar hand in early 2019. Late last year she was promoted to assistant winemaker at the winery.

Now in the final semester of her studies, Ruby recently competed in the Tonnellerie de Mercurey Marlborough Young Winemaker of the Year competition for the first time, placing second.

Having been selected from 17 applicants, the most in the competition’s history, and then competing against five other talented young winemakers, she was thrilled with the result.

“There are so many incredible applicants… I was pretty stoked just to make the cut,” she says

“When they called my name for second place, I couldn’t believe it, it was very exciting. But now that I look back at it, I can see that I actually did work pretty hard for it.”

Ruby applied for the competition in 2020, but wasn’t selected to compete. “To be honest that was actually a blessing in disguise; I don’t think I would have been quite ready for it last year,” she says.

Now she is hungry to try again. “I would like to do it next year and I would like to do quite well, [but] there were a few people that pulled out that I would say were hopeful to take it out this year,” she says.

In the meantime, Ruby is looking forward to completing her degree and getting stuck into another year in the winery, including the vintage buzz she enjoys. “It’s high intensity; it’s fast paced,” she says. “It just shows how much work really goes into a vintage, that you can fill a winery the size of this in three to four weeks and that gives us enough work to last another year; that amazes me.”