Other Esk Valley People
Steve Sykes - Cellar manager
Cellar Manager, Steve Sykes has been here for twenty years.
"The first year I was here we re-established "The Terraces" vineyard.
It was a huge job digging out the pine and preparing the ground, planting the vines and nurturing them through to the first vintage. But that first vintage just shone out above all else, it won awards and we realized what we had here.
We’re a close-knit team, the roles are fairly intertwined. There’s no big hierarchy, we sit around and brainstorm ideas, we muck in together and we get things done.
We believe in taking a holistic approach, especially in the way we train new people coming through. We rotate jobs, so everyone gets the big picture, and they go away from here with a lot of different skills"
Nick Antunovich – Vintage Hand
“I keep saying goodbye, but I keep coming back, it’s getting a bit ridiculous,” says Nick Antunovich, who has just completed another vintage in the Esk Valley Cellar, after returning from a season as a Winemaker for a small Austrian vineyard.
“I enjoy the atmosphere here. It’s a very relaxed place to work, although you would not think that if you saw us all hard at work during the vintage!”
Mark Amundsen – Cellar Hand
After completing a Wine Science Degree, Mark jumped at the chance to work at Esk Valley.
“Our tutors all told us that if we got the opportunity to work at Esk Valley, we should grab it, so I did and I certainly don’t regret it.
It’s a stunningly beautiful place to work. In the Summer and Autumn you look out across the valley at all the green and gold, with the Pacific Ocean sparkling in the distance, and it’s hard to imagine a better place to be.”
Sue Cranswick – Cellar Door Manager
Cellar Door Manager, Sue Cranswick, has been part of the Esk Valley team since 1991.
“When I first started here almost twenty years ago, I didn’t really know a great deal about wine. I was a farm girl and I can tell you that most of the farmers around here took a lot of convincing that you could even grow grapes here!
These days’ people visiting the Estate know quite a bit about wine and it’s great that they’re more concerned with quality, and less concerned with price.
I still get a kick out of changing people’s pre-conceived ideas though. I love it when they tell me, ‘Oh I definitely don’t like such-and-such a variety’, then they end up walking out the door with a case of it!”
Other Esk Valley People…
As well as the people profiled here, there are a team of fantastic people who contribute to the process of bringing you Esk Valley’s wines, especially when the harvest kicks off and the winery is humming 24 hours a day!