Enthusiasm galore

The new chief winemaker for Matua Wines is a fine example – encapsulating both qualities in huge volumes.

It's hard to keep Greg Rowdon sitting at the table for a chat. You can just feel him itching to get back to the winery, where preparations are underway for the 2016 vintage. He's excited, not only because it looks like it could be a bumper vintage (fingers crossed I am not upsetting the weather gods too early) but also because it is his first year as the head of a large winemaking team at Matua. He has got a lot of plans heading into vintage, not the least of them being to make his mark.

Rowdon is no carpet bagger when it comes to the new position. He has been a part of the Matua team for all bar three years since before he left school. His is a remarkable story – of someone determined to succeed at an industry he initially didn't know existed.

Brought up in Auckland, the schoolboy Rowdon was great at science but had no idea where he was going to be able to apply it. His mother suggested wine-making as an option, which led him to write to as many Auckland wineries as he could, asking for advice.

All of them replied, with suggestions of how he could go about getting into the industry, but Mark Robertson, chief winemaker for Matua went further and invited him to come out to the winery one day after school.

"He offered me his advice of what he thought I should do, which was a science degree first. Then after that if I was still keen he recommended me doing a vintage. And then if I was still keen, he suggested I go to Roseworthy and study winemaking."

Rowdon took his advice and when his science degree finished six months prior to his Masters starting he asked Mark if he could come and work at Matua for free.

"He said of course, but that he wanted to pay me. I thought that was pretty good," Rowdon admits. "And I absolutely loved it. That first six months was the best time I have ever had in my working life. It was the most exciting and interesting. I loved every minute of it."

Long story short, Rowdon went on to Auckland University which was establishing a Masters in Winemaking programme, where he spent the next two years. His research project was on volatile aromatics during micro-oxygenation – also undertaken at Matua. He freely admits while the research was interesting – it was just holding him back from what he really wanted to do.

"It is interesting and you do get to learn a lot but I just wanted to get in and start making wine."

That dream came true at the end of his studies when Matua offered him a unique "hybrid" role.

"Mark's thinking was that if you want to be a winemaker you need to serve an apprenticeship in the cellar. You need to really understand everything that happens in the cellar. So I was a cellar hand, slash assistant winemaker to start off with."

At the time Matua was going through the throes of being bought by the Fosters Group, which saw changes aplenty occurring. Within a few years, Rowdon and Bill Spence, who had become a very close friend, decided to do something small together. Moncellier Wines was born.

"I left Matua at the end of 07 to do this. It was an all encompassing role where I was making the wine, marketing it and doing every single piece of a very small wine company. We were only producing 5000 cases, aimed at the high end of the market –on-premise, high end restaurants and wine bars."

But no one foresaw the global financial crisis looming, and launching at the start of that wasn't all that auspicious. While distribution rights were in place, (via Treasury Wines) Rowdon says there just wasn't that high end market any more. It had fallen off. So when Treasury offered to bring the label into their portfolio, Spence and Rowdon agreed. He also agreed to come back to Matua as a winemaker. That was 2010.

In 2013 he moved to Marlborough, to undertake the Senior Marlborough winemaking role. Three years later he is the company's Chief winemaker, replacing Nikolai St George, who has moved to Giesens.

He admits St George's shoes are big ones to fill, but his enthusiasm isn't letting that get in his way.

"I have no problem filling those shoes. I have been making wine for Matua for a long time and have had a lot of influence over the styles of wine made by the company for a long time. I relish the opportunity. I will do it differently and I am prepared to make my mark."

One area he is keen to expand on, is wines with texture.

"I am really big on texture, how the wine feels in your mouth. The aromatics and flavour are obviously important, but that feeling of wine in your mouth is also really important to me. So our consumers will start to see a lot of that flowing through in the wines to come."

He is also looking forward to getting out into the vineyards throughout the country that Matua sources its fruit from. That will mean some heavy travelling in the next few months, between Gisborne, Hawke's Bay, Marlborough and Central Otago. But again, he is relishing the chance.

"To make good wine you have to get out in the field, so all our winemakers have a lot of vineyard exposure. In my new role it will mean I get even more – but that is fine by me."