However, we’ve really been lucky with the team we’ve brought together at Rathfinny – firstly, Cameron Roucher – who runs the vineyard and moved over from New Zealand in 2011 with his then young family (he likes to be known as Employee Number 1!) He manages a loyal and hard working crew of full-time and seasonal workers who keep the vineyard immaculate, producing some spectacular, ripe grapes for our French wine maker, Jonathan Médard. Jonathan grew up in Champagne and has bubbles in his blood. He joined us over five years ago from California to make our wines and oversee the building of our Winery. The team doesn’t stop there; we have a superb COO called Jamie Everett, who is quite unflappable and quietly, behind the scenes, keeps everything on track, including the recent building works. Our superb PA, now our Head of Business Development, Georgia Mallinson who together with Sarah runs all the client facing parts of the operation, ably assisted by our daughter, Millie. We have a great team in the Gun Room, our Cellar Door, which will shortly be moving up into the Winery and a great team running Hospitality across the Estate managed by Adrian Lamb.
We’ve also worked with some with some incredible consultants and agencies who have aided our decision making and helped steer us in the right direction. They include John Rushworth at Pentagram, Nicola Stephenson at Mission PR, Ivan Bell at Stranger and Stranger, as well as Martin Swatton who designed our Winery, Anthony Sherwin who designed our Flint Barns, Adrian Moore and Chris Wojtulewski at Parker Dann who worked tirelessly with Tim Slaney at the South Downs National Park, who showed great vision in supporting us with our plans. We can’t forget also our local community in Alfriston and the surrounding area who continue to be about as excited as we are about Rathfinny and are great ambassadors!
So we feel very lucky – we are about to release our first two Sussex Sparkling wines – the 2014 Blanc de Blancs and 2015 Rosé and we’re very proud of them. They are a great expression of the quality of the wine now being produced in England and I feel that they will both surprise and excite the national and international wine trade.
