A Signature Career

Over the course of his career, Clive Weston has helped to shape our wine industry. He was the Managing Director of Nautilus Estate and Negociants New Zealand and part of many industry boards, including the celebrated international Pinot Noir conference in Wellington and New Zealand Wine Growers, USA Limited. He has been inducted into the National Restaurant Association of New Zealand’s Hall of Fame for services to the hospitality industry, awarded the Sir George Fistonich Medal for services to New Zealand wine, and is the only non-Australian to become a Yalumba Signatory, with the 2009 vintage of Yalumba’s The Signature. Clive’s journey has covered almost 50 years since his first vintage in Bordeaux in 1973.

If we go back to Bordeaux in 1973, did you know that the wine industry would become such a big part of your life?
In my school holidays, I worked in a number of bars and restaurants that my father operated within the context of a Hi-de-Hi holiday village-type of environment in Somerset, England.
I was tasting wine as a teenager as part of my job waiting tables and my father said to one of his wine suppliers, ‘Clive’s expressed an interest in wine and learning a bit more about it’. This wine supplier said, ‘Well, I can arrange for him to go and work in the cellars of class growth Château Cantenac Brown, Margaux and also work in downtown Bordeaux, in the big, bulk wine production facilities. He said, ‘The only thing I can tell you is it will either make or break his interest’.
That was a light bulb moment; getting your hands dirty, rolling barrels around in the cellars of a prestige chateau in Bordeaux felt like me.
I turned down the offer of two places to go to university, to read business studies and instead joined the Wine Trade because, at that time in the UK, you could not get a degree in oenology or winemaking at university; you had to go to France or Germany to achieve that.
The UK ran a series of Trade examinations and qualifications, which I went through. I stayed with that first employer, a very traditional UK national wine spirit group, for 13 years before transferring to a very small, super-premium fine wine importer/distributor, specialising in new world wines, which included wines from California, Australia and New Zealand, for that matter.

What do you think it was about wine that made you want to pursue it?
It’s the human touch. Wine’s something that you ingest and we humans rightly think very carefully about anything that we put inside our bodies. There’s a romance about wine, a mystique that piques the curiosity. Whilst wine today is made for the enjoyment of all, an element of mystique remains around the subject. It captured my imagination, so that was it.

When you left London, one the epicentres of the world, and arrived in New Zealand, was there a moment when you thought, what the hell have I done?
No. I’ve always held a view that you don’t look back too hard. You reflect on the positives of the past, but you can’t have regrets in life. Were there things I might have done differently or better? Of course there are, but once I made the decision to leave the UK, I was only looking forward and New Zealand’s been very kind to me. I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever.
There are things about the UK that I miss, notably old chums, great pubs and ales, but not so much today. I’ve lived more of my life in New Zealand than in the UK. I’m now more Kiwi, with three Kiwi-born children and married to Sarah, a Kiwi.
London remains a very traditional wine trade hub where you could get wines from anywhere in the world. It’s a sophisticated, mature market, not just in terms of wine, but in terms of cuisine. By contrast, coming to Auckland in the mid-eighties, there were a couple of steakhouses, one or two modern wineries and a number of traditional, old-style wine-making dynasties, largely of Dalmatian origin, but the importance of these “Founding fathers” can’t be overstated, seeding the world class wine industry that New Zealand boasts today.

Do you think you perhaps saw the potential in the NZ wine industry that multi-generational New Zealanders may have missed?
I mentioned the Dalmatian communities planting vines here. This was initially to emulate what they would do at home, with wines made for domestic consumption. There really wasn’t so much of a commercial angle but that obviously grew from those simple, humble beginnings.
The explosion of Sauvignon Blanc driven by Marlborough and the first plantings in the early seventies really put a stake in the export ground for us, in multiple markets. There was a naivety and a sense of not knowing quite what the right direction should be for a number of New Zealand winemakers. The size of the opportunity that existed in a global sense for New Zealand wine hadn’t been fully scoped. Coming from the UK, I could certainly see that there was a big opportunity.

Do you think that’s part of the magic? That naivety and not necessarily having this industry set on this foundation for commercial potential.
I think it’s very important. The great New Zealand winemakers at the top of their game focused on making small batches of great wine. They may not work for a family. They may work for a limited liability business that’s maybe even a public company, but they carry the same level of passion and enthusiasm and the same values that were established by those early settlers making wine here.

When you’re talking about the Hill-Smith family of Yalumba winery, I get the same sense that within other aspects of the industry, there is often a family-oriented dynamic. Is that fair?
I think it’s absolutely fair. The Hill-Smith family is a very good example. I’ve had other opportunities to work for larger organisations within the beverage industry in New Zealand and I’ve turned them down because for me, working for a family-owned business, there’s more emotion, there’s more passion. It’s not just a numbers game.
Family companies can take a long-term view. They don’t have to satisfy a margin return every year to multiple shareholders. Often the shares are in a pretty tight-knit group of family members, who invest as investment is needed, even if they don’t get an immediate return. I like the emphasis on quality first and no compromise to quality, that some family businesses can put ahead of anything else.
Exemplified by Yalumba and by the sixth generation Hill-Smith family, quality is paramount and is a key driver of their decision-making process. They’re terrific people to work for and it’s been said that if you look at the almost 175 years history of Yalumba, this really reflects the Australian wine industry’s history, because of everything that the whole industry had to contend with over a 175 year period.

We have gone through a bit of a bubble of venture capital-backed growth for some startups and we’re starting to pull back. But it is such a different concept to the one you’re talking about, where you’ve got six generations of family involved, and it’s more about longevity rather than scale.
I think every wine business that cares about its consumer and the brand that it markets has a valid role to play within the industry. We need the larger corporates, they’ve got the clout, they’ve got the distribution channels, the international network, they’ve got their feet on the ground in multiple markets to be able to push the category, elevate New Zealand wine.
For smaller independent family-owned producers it’s very hard to grow sales internationally without the category having been formed. It’s the bigger companies with deeper pockets that can open up the category for the smaller producers to ride on their coat tails. I think it’s complimentary, it’s not that one’s better than the other. It’s really an opportunity to deliver value right through the supply chain to the end consumer.
There are some wonderful inexpensive, commercially priced wines that the large global beverage guys can put out, that smaller independent companies cant possibly match on price. In global terms, New Zealand is a niche player and we have to be more expensive because our operating costs per litre are that much higher. But I think provided New Zealand can fill the mid to high end retail and wine menu slots, then every wine has its place, as long as the quality is there in wines that are clean, well made, and faultless.

Does it feel like recently we’re retracting a little bit from globalisation and we’re becoming more nationalist?
Covid may have changed the psyche a little and made us a little more isolated. Because we’ve had lockdowns, people have been unable to travel and there’s been so much uncertainty. It has been tricky from a logistics supply point of view to actually get our products into containers and then to find the boats available to put the containers on, to get to key export markets.
But the exciting thing is that there’s been no shortage of orders from overseas markets and the world is lapping up New Zealand wine. It’s just a case of whether we can get it to them in a timely manner, which through COVID has not been easy.
Domestically, certainly, with Kiwi’s not able to travel overseas, wine has been a regular feature on the shopping list for many more people that would otherwise have spent their dollars overseas. In that context, I observed from my days at Negociants before I left in May 21, that sales of top end wines lifted noticeably through Covid. Sales went up and up and up because New Zealanders that would’ve spent maybe two or three months overseas enjoying another country’s wines sought them out locally to drink them here.

That seems like part of the magic of wine as well, that element of being able to transport yourself to a certain time and a certain place.
Absolutely right. And as I said, there’s an emotion about wine that you don’t necessarily get with a bar of toilet soap ! It pulls the heartstrings and that’s part of the magic of the category. The wine industry can’t rest on its laurels. We’ve got other product categories in the beverage sector; light beers, no alcohol beers, hard seltzers, cider, pre-mix drinks, all targeting the next generation of drinkers coming through the system. Something the Wine Trade has to address is how to attract the next-gen to enjoy its products.

Can you remember other challenges throughout your career that punctuated things when you look back?
Other than mother nature wreaking havoc during harvest time, which can affect any region in the world, you can probably pinpoint the most significant challenges as being around world recessions.
Whether it was the OPEC crisis of the seventies, the stock market crash of October ‘87,  the GFC of ‘08/’09, or COVID, those have been the times when everyone has had to stop and prioritise what to spend their money on.
At the end of the day, whilst I would argue that wine is a must-have, you can survive without it, just ! So, when times are tough or you’re moving into a recession, you may well find that people still want a bottle of wine, but they’ll move from a $25 to a $12 bottle. So there’s a bit of a downward trending of retail price points, certainly.

Does your cellar have a selection of wines that set chapters in some of the histories along the way?
Well, <laugh>, as it happens, I do have a bottle of ‘89. It’s a rather fancy bottle as well. I’ve just got to pick the right moment to share it. <Laugh> Who am I gonna share it with? And then obviously back to The Signature, I’ve got a few bottles left of the ‘09. So once again, it’s about moments in time.
A colleague once asked me, what were my vinous light bulb moments? I remember a bottle of 1945, Lynch-Bages from Pauillac, which I was lucky enough to taste in 1974. That was another trigger that reinforced my interest in the trade. So, to your point, there are wines that relate to a specific moment in time; of course, the challenge with an aged wine is not pulling the cork out too quickly.

Can you describe that light bulb moment when you were tasting that 1945 vintage, can you talk a little bit about what you’re experiencing?
It was like nothing I’d experienced or tasted before. Here was a thirty-year-old wine made a decade before I was born. Simply put, the wine was ethereal, an old Bordeaux from a great producer and I left the tasting thinking to myself, ‘Ah, yes, so this is what it’s all about’.
It had a lasting impact on me, both demonstrating that a top wine will age for decades if it’s a good wine to start with. And then if you’re patient enough to cellar it for the right amount of time in the right cellaring conditions, you will be rewarded. I remember it quite vividly almost fifty years on.

Can we skip to another moment as well in 2013 where you found out that you had become the first non-Australian Yalumba Signatory, what was that moment like?
At the time, I didn’t really connect the fact that I was the first non-Australian, that sunk in a bit later on. Yalumba’s owner, my ultimate boss, Robert Hill-Smith called me in person to tell me the news and it was stunned silence for a few seconds. And then I just said, ‘Well, Robert, it’s been a pleasure working with you for so long and I’m thrilled and I’m chuffed and I’m humbled. I just hope that everybody enjoys the ‘09 vintage as much as I know I’m going to’. <Laughs> That was really it.

Does it feel like you’ve become a formalised part of the legacy?
Yeah. That’s part of being humbled and flattered. When I look at the list of Yalumba Signatories that have gone before and since my vintage, I feel as though I’m in pretty esteemed company. I have on occasion wondered why I was really judged Signature worthy but there it is and I’m certainly not gonna argue <laughs>.
It’s the highest honour that an employee of Yalumba can be given by the family that owns the business for what they deem to be a healthy, positive contribution, that’s made a difference.

If you stopped and you looked back over your career, what do you think is the secret to some of your success within the industry?

Oh, that’s really not for me to say. I think that’s for others to judge. It’s important to recognise that you wont optimise your own success without the other people working around you, be they suppliers, workmates, or customers. Hopefully being respectful to everybody, particularly customers without whom we’re gone. Over the years, it’s wonderful to note the customers, who have become personal friends.
It all gets a bit clichéd really, but walking the talk, being consistent, trying to play fair, to be a fair boss, and to be treated fairly, is important. Giving someone a pat on the back when they’ve done something special or done a good turn for the business. Too often people get taken for granted. Everyone appreciates a pat on the back and it doesn’t cost anything to give it.

What goes into some of that calculation when you choose to work for a family-owned business over a big corporate?
It’s the personality and the people within a family-owned business, somehow they behave differently or are allowed to behave differently than in the corporate jungle. My first 13 years I spent with a large multinational organisation. I think they employed 6,000 people and I ended up moving to a company in Soho in London that employed 12 people. I can tell you that that was one of the best decisions of my life.
13 years of understanding how the larger corporate animals think and tick was helpful later on and as I said earlier, they have an important role to play. But given the choice, it was quite easy for me to say, no, I will stay with the family company that has entrusted me to look after their business and their brand.

In the media we’ll celebrate the scale of New Zealand businesses, but you’re painting a picture about this other way to go, this intergenerational kind of concept that has completely different metrics around that I find really interesting.
There’s a place for them all. I love the thought of successful New Zealand businesses growing and taking ‘Brand New Zealand’ to the world, whatever sector it happens to be in.
The Wine Trade is a pretty good example. New Zealand wine is now available in a hundred different countries. 35 odd years ago when I first got to New Zealand, it might have been 10.
There’s a place for everybody. The key to it, is to just protect or invest in your core values. When you started out, you had a charter, which kept you honest and said, no matter how big or small we are, these are the values we’ll abide by. If you can grow and still remember those values as you grow, then the world is your oyster, as they say.

Using Yalumba as an example, where they go from generation to generation, do those values evolve, or do they stay pretty true to the original?
I think the values stay the same, but how they manifest themselves, how you communicate them, and how you implement them have to change in order to keep up with technology, with the market, and with the multiple export client base that you are selling to.
You have to be flexible, you’ve gotta be adaptable to meet the challenges, but I don’t think that those core values necessarily have to change at all. In fact, I think there are businesses that lose their way because they don’t go back to what those initial core values were. In anything I’ve tried to do over the years, it’s to just put the hand brake on for a few minutes and stop and think, are we actually doing what we set out to do in the first place, in the way that we set out to do it?

Find out more about Yalumba The Signature here.