Nick was raised at his family’s Te Mata Estate and famous Coleraine vineyard home in Havelock North. His childhood in the vineyards and winery create opportunity to taste many great wines at an impressionable age, which fired Nick’s career in fine wine.

Nick was a scholarship student at Rathkeale College, a private boarding school outside Masterton. He then completed a Finance degree at Palmerston North’s Massey University, working nights and weekends in wine distribution and retailing, and summer’s back in the family vineyards.

Upon graduating, Nick moved to London, to work full-time in wine and learn the great wines of Europe. Marketing, shipping, sales and customer service roles at London wine importers and distributors provided insight into the international wine trade, while evenings were spent completing the Diploma program at the UK’s Wine and Spirit Education Trust– tasting yet more fine wine.

This grounding led Nick to start an in-house wine importation and distribution division for a group of 160 restaurants across the UK. At just 26, Nick became the largest duty -paid wine buyer in the UK – touring Europe to buy wines for restaurant lists, handling shipping, customs, warehousing, distribution, and accounting, training restaurant wine staff, fronting promotional events, and presenting at industry seminars. Success indeed, but winemaking, Te Mata and NewZealand were calling- Nick needed to get back to vines and cellars.

Nick spent a year as an intern at Chateau Margaux in Bordeaux, France, before returning to Te Mata Estate in 2000. Initially responsible for all aspects of Te Mata’s sales and marketing, Nick became a director of Te Mata in 2003 and, in 2013, was appointed Chief Executive.

Under Nick’s direction Te Mata Estate has purchased new vineyards and replanted existing ones, renovated and modernized Te Mata’s wine production, developed new wines and expanded into new markets such that Te Mata’s wines are now sold in 45 markets around the world. Long recognized as amongst the foremost wineries in New Zealand, Te Mata Estate wines continue to achieve new heights and convert new followers.