The People
Women In Wine Kate Radburnd’s remarkable contribution to New Zealand wine WORDS: TESSA NICHOLSON
K ATE R ADBURND grew up in Adelaide with wine loving parents, and tasted her first New Zealand wine in 1982. It was a Montana Blenheimer, from memor y, and ver y unimpressive, she admits. But within a matter of months Kate was working in New Zealand as a winemaker, and would grow to love cool climate wines, and to play an integral part in the formation of the New Zealand wine industry. Kate was the only female in her graduating year at Rosewor thy Agricultural College, and had no direct links to any winery, so applied for all jobs. When Villa Maria founder Sir George Fistonich visited the
46 //
university, Kate was offered the job of Assistant Winemaker at Vidal in Hawke’s Bay. The next few years were to throw curve balls at the young winemaker. First there was 1985, when a tsunami of fruit coincided with days of torrential rain, almost wiping the vintage out. Then came the Government vine pull that saw hundreds of hectares of grapes removed throughout New Zealand. Coinciding with that, Villa Maria went into receivership, although it was to recover the following year. Kate sees it all as a glass half full: “The vine pull meant that we ended up with the right varieties and the right
NZ WINEGROWER JUNE/JULY 2020
sites. Also, with Villa Maria’s receivership, that absolutely embedded in me that we had to focus on quality. We are small and remote in New Zealand - it absolutely has to be about quality. With those experiences, I think I have been very lucky.” After seven years with Vidal, Kate moved to CJ Pask as Head Winemaker. Within two years, she was a part owner of the Gimblett Gravels’ company, and by 1999 she was Managing Director. During her time with Pask, Kate represented Hawke’s Bay on the board of New Zealand Winegrowers (NZW) for 14 years, chaired Sustainable Winegrowing
New Zealand (SWNZ) for more than five years, and was instrumental in rolling out the SWNZ programme for wineries. Integrated Winegrape Production (the forerunner of SWNZ) had begun as a pilot programme in 1995 and Pask was one of the vineyards involved. But Kate could see that more was needed. “I remember thinking that this is just crazy. If we are doing it in the vineyard, we need to be able to follow it through and show that we are doing it in the winery.” Pask, Vidal, Palliser Estate and Martinborough Vineyards joined together to gain ISO 14001 accreditation for their