THE PEOPLE
Jenny Dobson
For services to winemaking Jenny Dobson was 22 and blissfully naïve when she left New Zealand for France in 1979, with a chemistry degree, a love of wine and an ambition to become a winemaker. “Within a week of arriving in Burgundy, I thought, ‘I have found my dream; this is all I want to do’. I love the culture of food and wine, and the appreciation, and the fact that it’s the lifeblood of what we do... I had landed in heaven.” Forty-six years later, Jenny been named a 2025 New Zealand Winegrowers Fellow, and is as passionate as ever about her vocation, including running her own bespoke Hawke’s Bay wine label and championing New Zealand wine, here and abroad. “I am very, very humbled to be awarded this fellowship,” she says. “Because I am doing what I love.” Raised in a family that supported her career ambitions (including her feisty grandmother Doris), Jenny didn’t see any barriers when she set off for France, with little understanding of the language or culture. “Within six weeks of being there I was told that women aren’t allowed in cellars because they have funny acids that are going to turn the wine to vinegar,” she says. “They were quite serious about it, but I thought it was ridiculous, so it didn’t set me back.” Her first job was at Domaine Dujac, where she helped with bottling before harvest, then picked grapes all day, before turning up at the winery to see if she could help. One day she slipped off the narrow edge while plunging and fell into the vat. Jenny told the winemaker a few hours later and was bemused to watch him rush to the winery to ensure the wine had not been ruined. The slip proved fortuitous, and by the second year she was allowed to foot plunge. After 18 months, Jenny moved to work in the cellar and vineyard of another small
Jenny Dobson. Photo Kirsten Simcox
producer in Burgundy, where no one spoke English, but the language of food and wine proved “pretty universal”. She then moved to Paris to work for the late British wine expert Steven Spurrier, whose wine tasting school and shop provided a “phenomenal” tasting education. After 18 months, she went to Bordeaux to work the “outstanding” 1982 vintage at Château Rahoul in Graves, owned then by Len Evans. Then it was back to Paris, before being offered a job as a cellar hand at Chateau Sénéjac, in the Haut Médoc. She arrived at the beginning of 1983, only to find that the cellar master was sick, leaving Jenny with the choice of walking away or stepping into the role. “I was just in the right place at the right time,” she says of becoming the first female Maître de Chais in Bordeaux. Right time, right place, but also right attitude, of course. “Naivety again,” Jenny says, while also acknowledging the New Zealand mindset of “well let’s just get on with it”. She stayed at Chateau Sénéjac for 11 years,
during which time she married and had three children. “There was no such thing as maternity cover in those days. My maternity leave was my time in the maternity home. However, I lived where I worked, and my babies came to work with me.” By 1994, Jenny started to notice a glass ceiling, and was yearning to be around family, with her children growing up and her parents aging out of regular travel from New Zealand. They went to Western Australia for a year as a trial run, before moving to New Zealand in 1996, checking out wine regions from Northland to Central Otago, before settling on Hawke’s Bay for its Bordeaux connections. Jenny had a contract to look after Sacred Hill’s red winemaking for the 1996 vintage, and also set up as a consultant. Her French experience proved valuable to Hawke’s Bay winegrowers, particularly in terms of blending. At that stage, New Zealand and Australian winemakers tended to use blending to hide faults, whereas in
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I NEW ZEALAND WINEGROWER I AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2025