Growing Legacy: Pegasus Bay

I’m writing this from my hotel room in Bangkok. I feel grateful for being here, and even more so for being here representing a family business that I believe in so passionately.

I arrived in Seoul yesterday after launching our 2015 aged-release wines. This is our newest export market, making it the 45th country in which we have distribution. My next stop is Brussels, followed by further destinations in Europe and the United Kingdom.

White it may sound pretty glamorous, and I must admit it is at times, it can also be incredibly tiring. I'm often fighting jetlag to some degree, which can make being upbeat and engaging difficult at times.

I'm certainly not complaining; life has dealt me a pretty good hand, and I don't take this for granted. I love my job and couldn't imagine doing anything else. I realise I have privilege, being born into a family with loving parents who gave my brothers and I so many opportunities, as well as showing us the gold standard of what a good marriage can look like. I have massive respect for my parents.

The early days of establishing the business were very different to this. It was a hectic mix of excitement, stress and confusion, running on adrenalin and cortisol most of the time as I tried to keep all the balls in the air while learning everything on the fly. When I started working for the family business, aged 20, I was by far the youngest person I encountered in my position within the industry. It was hard not to feel out of my depth at times.

But the hard graft of the early years was nothing compared to that of my parents, whose sacrifices and relentless determination made so much out of so little. They started with a dream and a mountain so tall to climb that it's almost impossible for me to even fully comprehend.

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Ivan grew up just outside Dunedin. His father died when he was young, leaving his mother to provide for and bring up five children. There was nothing privileged about the family into which Dad was born. At the age of 15, his grades were such that the school dean told him he was wasting his time doing anything academic and that he should leave and pursue a trade. This obviously struck a nerve, because in his final year he was Dux of the school, then went on to study medicine, specialising in neurology, before eventually transitioning into wine.

My mother, Chris, was a nurse, and my parents met at a party for final-year medical students in the mid-1960s. This marked the beginning of a lifelong partnership, and a journey neither of them could have anticipated. Early in their relationship, Chris gave Ivan a book called Wine, by Hugh Johnson, the well-known English wine critic and author. My father became fascinated with wine. He didn’t know anything about it until that point, but the book inspired him to ferment fruit wine in his dorm room, with mixed results.

The Donaldson family.

My parents moved to London after Ivan won a Commonwealth Medical Scholarship in the early 1970s, and he cemented his love affair with wine through travels around Europe, visiting wineries and learning about the industry. I was born in London in 1975, just before they returned to New Zealand. They and a group of friends went on to plant one of the first vineyards of modern times in Canterbury – the French had beaten them to it about 180 years earlier, in Akaroa.

Ivan made the wine from the garage at home, in between working at the public hospital fulltime, lecturing at Canterbury University, running his own private practice in the evenings, writing a weekly wine column in the Christchurch Press, and judging at several national and international wine shows. Mum did all of Dad’s secretarial work for the private practice, while running the house and raising four boys. She was also hugely instrumental in establishing the winery.

In the early 80s, they decided to take the plunge and break away from the hobby vineyard, with a vision of doing something on a bigger scale. That something became Pegasus Bay. They looked at sites all over Canterbury and were drawn to the Waipara Valley because of protection from the easterly winds. They found a site on what is now known as the Glasnevin Gravels, an ancient riverbed with free-draining soils. The earlier vineyard wasn’t sheltered, and they struggled to ripen the fruit consistently; hence, the focus was on finding a slightly warmer environment.

They came up with the money for the land by selling a run-down old property they had bought earlier, and had made some modest improvements to. My three brothers and I were set to work making vine cuttings. We were paid 5 cents a cutting and managed to make about $10 for a full day’s work. We were all involved in planting the vineyard in 1985, and most of our weekends and holidays were spent on this block of land. The only accommodation we had was an old caravan, but that was all we needed. It was hard work, but I loved being outside, and the property became a playground for us young boys. It was here that I became connected with nature and the outdoors.

Ivan Donaldson making the first vintage of Pegasus Bay in the home garage in 1981.

The person my parents bought the land from didn’t make it easy. Once the purchase agreement was signed, he learned we were planning to plant a vineyard, and started demanding more money, moving boundaries, and even putting dead rabbits in our letterbox, along with every piece of debris that blew onto his neighbouring property. Later on, he threatened to spray the vineyard with weedkiller by plane. He managed to delay us taking full possession of the land for several years and causing my parents a world of stress.

Then came the reality of how difficult it is to get a vine cutting to take in free-draining soils with no irrigation. In desperation, we filled up a tank on the back of a tractor from a small creek and hand-watered every vine in a 20-hectare block. A large portion of the vines died over two consecutive years. After the third attempt, we set up a crude irrigation system.

The next major setback was frost. Early frost fighting involved driving around the vineyard all night with a thermometer out the car’s window, using a flashlight to direct a helicopter overhead to blow warm air down on the coolest parts of the vineyard. This was fraught with issues and resulted in the loss of close to the entire crop on several occasions. Nothing like the relatively sophisticated system we have now.

We finally released our first wine, which my father made in 1991 in the home garage. My younger brother, Paul, then 15, drew the original label, which he copied from the Steve Miller Band’s Book of Dreams album cover. He assumed our parents would have taken his sketches to a designer, but they went ahead and got it printed straight on the label. It was quite something! My eldest brother, Mat, was at Roseworthy College in Adelaide studying wine. When he returned and saw the label he freaked out, and thankfully had the good taste to redesign it to what it is today. Mat and his now ex-wife Lynnette (Hudson) were a great winemaking team. They worked together and made wines that turned heads for many years.

The first stage of the winery was built in 1992, and we opened a very basic restaurant and cellar door. The winery was designed by a rather eccentric architect who was also passionate about drawing naked people as a side interest. I recall the early architectural sketches of people standing naked on balconies to provide scale. The winery was built in stages over 10 or so years.

When I left school, I trained as a chef and started working under our first head chef as his commis. Back then we had cheap plastic tables sitting on gravel in a bare paddock. Every time the wind picked up, all the tables and umbrellas would go flying. The kitchen was located in a small room upstairs, equipped with an old domestic stove, two tiny fridges, and a BBQ that would completely smoke out the kitchen every time meat hit the grill, as we had no extraction.

In the early days, we closed during the quiet months, and I would go to London to work in kitchens and gain experience. Three years later, I was head chef, restaurant manager, marketing manager, and in charge of sales in Christchurch. I had so much responsibility and very little experience. I did my best, but don’t think I excelled at any of the roles. It was more about keeping my head above water. As time passed, I had to choose between marketing and cheffing. This was an easy choice for me. I hung up my chef whites for good and continued managing the restaurant while focusing more on sales and marketing.

Ed, Paul and Mike Donaldson help plant Pegasus Bay in 1986.

Eventually, I handed over the reins of the restaurant to my now-wife Belinda, whom I met as my maître d’. She took the restaurant to new heights and continues to manage the hospitality side of our business. This freed up my time to travel and better establish and service export markets.

Paul joined the business in 2005. He returned from London, completed an MBA, and took over managing the business from my parents. His arrival was perfectly timed, as our company had grown, but we had very little structure in place. Paul brought this to the winery, and has played a crucial role in our success today.

My older brother, Mike, joined the business in 2016 and took over managing the sales in our local Canterbury market. His natural people skills, combined with being a family member, made him the perfect fit. Mike also contributes to many other areas of the business and, along with Paul and me, is involved in the wine styles and final blends.

Today our vineyard is 40 years old and covers 40 hectares. We decided long ago that we didn’t want to get any bigger but instead focus on making the best wine possible. The winery’s size is ideal for us to achieve economies of scale without compromising quality.

Over the decades, my mother and our landscape team have established internationally recognised gardens surrounding the winery. My father remains heavily involved in our viticulture, and we have a team of approximately 50 employees across various parts of the business who are like family, many of whom have been with us for decades. We certainly wouldn’t be where we are today without them, and many have become integral to the business.