Growing Legacy
Thirty-six years after Dave and Chris Macdonald followed a vineyard dream to Marlborough, and 28 years after they named a wine label for their children Blair and Deni, the family is devoted to Bladen, says Deni Hopkins
So it’s no surprise he hated a job where his only connections were circuits.
He stuck with it for two years before throwing in his wires in 2008 and taking a job at a luxury hotel, wielding wines instead. “And I loved it from day one”, he says 14 years later, having taken second place at the recent Association de la Sommellerie Internationale (ASI) Best Sommelier of Asia-Oceania Contest in Tokyo.
“Standing on a stage, thinking on your feet, because you’re not sure what the next task will be, while being filmed and live-streamed is daunting,” Andrea says of the event which featured 24 competitors from 13 countries. “But it’s also exciting to be personally challenged in such ways. I am very grateful for this opportunity.”
Andrea is currently Food and Beverage manager at The Grove and Baduzzi in Auckland. When I spoke with him at Celia Hay’s New Zealand School of Food and Wine the day before he set off for Japan, he was busy crafting cocktails, considering wines, and undertaking the time trial pour of a magnum of bubbles into 14 glasses – a number announced at the last moment – resulting in an empty bottle and near identical pours after six minutes.
Andrea says to do his job well he has to have a good connection with customers, which is easy, because “making people happy is something I really love”. He spent 10 years doing theatre in Italy, and that’s served him well in hospitality because it requires a good dose of performance, he adds.
When he began his hospitality journey, Andrea thought he’d be a chef, having cooked for his family throughout his teenage years. But a toxic kitchen environment at his first hotel job, combined with the natural fit he found front-of-house, saw a stellar career launched. It has taken Andrea to extraordinary restaurants, including Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck, but the “brutal” nature of working in Michelin star restaurants in Europe left him no time to study for his Master Sommelier exams. Striving for this goal was one of the reasons he moved to New Zealand in 2018. “Here it is definitely easier to have a balance.”
However, Andrea became General Manager at The Grove just before the first national lockdown arising from the Covid-19 pandemic occurred. This meant the past few years were unexpectedly stressful and arduous, and he has put his Master Sommelier studies on hold.
Preparing for the Tokyo competition, and now for the ASI World’s Best Sommelier Contest to be held in Paris in February 2023, has him honing his skills and knowledge again. “It takes a lot of motivation and dedication to prepare and put yourself up for such competitions.”
