RUTHERGLEN profile
Eliza Brown pr ofile
CEO & Owner
All Saints Estate & St Leonards Vineyard
‘It’s a little Europe up here, I’m constantly surprised by the diversity and the people I get to meet. There are some real personalities.’ Given Eliza Brown now sits comfortably as matriarch of her father’s company – and was finalist in the 2007 Telstra Business Women’s Awards, as well as named one of the Future Leaders of the Australian Wine Industry – you’d assume she was groomed for the position. ‘My family talked about food and wine as far back as I can remember,’ says Eliza in recalling memories of building cubbies and skipping through the vines of Brown Brothers’ revered vineyard in Milawa. ‘But I wanted to become a photographer… until I realised I was no good at it,’ she humbly adds. Thanks to the persistence of her father, Peter, talking up the North Eastern weather – ‘more sunny days each year than Surfer’s Paradise,’ she states as fact – Eliza was coaxed back from the city. She commenced at All Saints Estate – the grandiose Rutherglen winery situated in a Scottish castle that Peter had purchased independently of the family business. However, Eliza’s initiation into company CEO was an unexpected one, literally taking place over
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night when she was three months pregnant. ‘Dad was killed in a road accident on a Sunday,’ she admits, ‘Then, on the Monday, I became CEO of the company.’ Negotiating the ins and outs of her father’s business was not easy, but – with help from her sister, Angela, and brother, Nick – Eliza struggled out from behind the eight ball and upheld her father’s formidable legacy through both All Saints and St Leonards wineries. It also helped that his promotion of the region lived up to the hype. When asked about juggling life, motherhood and business, Eliza doesn’t believe in magic formulas. ‘You know what girls are like, we just do everything.’ All Saints Estate All Saints Road, Wahgunyah (Rutherglen) tel: (02) 6035 2222 www.allsaintswine.com.au St Leonards Vineyard St Leonards Road, Wahgunyah (Rutherglen) tel: 1800 021 621 www.stleonardswine.com.au