Gen Yine

Trading in the city for wine country

KAT DUGGAN

THE “GROUNDHOG DAY” experience of working through Level-4 lockdown last year led Josh Rowley and Sarah Rowley Adams to rethink and reshape their lives. Fast forward a year, and the couple have moved from Auckland to Blenheim and Josh has traded in a brewing career for winemaking instead.

“I saw the [Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology Cellar-Ops] course pop up online and I thought ‘this would be a cool thing to try’, since we couldn’t go overseas or do anything,” says Sarah, who is communications and digital advisor for New Zealand Winegrowers (NZW). “There was an NZW office down here so it was a safe move for me, and Josh was quite keen to try winemaking.”

The six-month programme is an introductory course into cellar operations, which requires students to undertake a vintage within a winery. Over harvest, Josh worked the night shift at Pernod Ricard Winemakers, enabling him to fully grasp the differences between brewing beer and making wine. “It’s very different to working in a brewery; going from a small brewery to a large winery especially, but the nature of the beast is entirely different,” Josh says. “You only get the chance to make the wine once a year, whereas in a brewery brewing can be 24/7.”

The couple both worked through the four-week Level-4 lockdown in March 2020, as essential workers. “Our lives weren’t that different in lockdown compared to our normal lives,” says Josh. “It was sort of like groundhog day; we would get up, go to work, get home. While everyone was loving their lockdown lives we were under the pump and we were still not going out and enjoying what Auckland had to offer, it was just sleep, work, repeat.”

Since making the shift to Blenheim, Josh has been enjoying the social aspect of working in a winery, which differs from the more solitary nature of working as a brewer. “Brewing definitely involves teamwork, but the daily run of tasks or operating a small brewhouse can be quite an individualist task. With a large winery, it’s a much bigger team and we often work in pairs to complete tasks,” he says.

Despite admitting to missing the comforts of the brewery during cold wet nights working outside at the winery, Josh is excited about the opportunities the wine industry has to offer, and has begun a full-time role at Marisco Winery. “Ultimately I don’t see myself returning to beer any time soon.”

Josh and Sarah have lived in many places throughout New Zealand, meeting in Wellington, where they lived together for a few years before spending five years together in Auckland. Throughout that time, Sarah had various connections to the wine industry, working for Yealands Estate Winery before taking on her current role with New Zealand Winegrowers in 2018. “I’ve been coming down here for the past four years from Auckland for work … and I’m enjoying living in a small town more than I thought I would.”

While Josh was working nights and sleeping days through vintage, Sarah busied herself with the Marlborough Pottery Club and social get-togethers with workmates, and is becoming familiar with the Friday night crowd at 5 Tapped bar. “I’ve got a really nice supportive group at work, and we do things on the weekends together… pottery is another really great group of people … I really like the community vibe (in Marlborough),” Sarah says.

The cost of living compared to that in Auckland has been another bonus for the couple, who are able to rent a three bedroom home here for the same price as a one bedroom flat in the city.

Being in the region means Sarah is surrounded by the very product she writes so much about, particularly with an office based at one of the industry’s hubs - the Marlborough Research Centre on Budge Street. “It helps being immersed in the wine industry - you can’t go anywhere without seeing a vineyard so you’re really immersed in the industry here. It’s also so handy being able to walk past the Wine Marlborough window to get a coffee … we’ve also got Bragato [Research Institute] here as well, and I hear a lot from the SWNZ, or Sustainable Wine New Zealand team … I learn a lot about what is happening in the vineyards which I think has only helped with my marketing.”

Sarah has always viewed social media as a necessity within the marketing plan of most wineries. “A lot of our wineries are small to medium in size and social media really lets you access a lot of people for free, if you do it right,” she says.

Alongside establishing and maintaining relationships with corporate clients and general consumers, social media helps to create demand for a product. While not increasing the importance of social media marketing, the Covid-19 pandemic exemplified its importance, Sarah says. “It’s important to keep up that demand for your product.”