Meet Kristina
At just 26 years of age, Kristina is a deeply valued member of the Rathfinny team, having been with us for 8 years. As a Wine Business graduate from Plumpton College and having most recently completed her WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines, Kristina oversees Customer Experiences at Rathfinny Wine Estate, ensuring every guest has a memorable visit. This includes managing our Cellar Door shop, supporting product development, and leading tour and tasting experiences.
Words by Kristina
When I talk to people about my job, I often joke that it’s very difficult tasting wine all day! Of course, I don’t always taste wine all day, but wine tasting is a big part of my working week and, well, who wouldn’t love that?! Working in the hospitality/retail sector, my working week often starts on a Tuesday and no two days are the same.
Tuesday
Tuesday sees me catching up from the busy weekend and planning for the week. Today, my team and I are sending out cases of our 2018 Blanc de Noirs and Blanc de Blancs to our Rathfinny Reserved customers. Our Reserved programme gives customers the opportunity to pre-order these two premium wines by the case and to secure their allocation before release. Our customers have been patiently waiting for the past two years for these wines to be ready and I’m delighted to be shipping them today.
After work it’s time to taste some wine! One of my colleagues is studying for the WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines; an exam that I undertook this time last year. I’ve organised a series of blind wine tasting sessions to help her exam preparations, this was week 3 – three wines from the same region. We taste the wines individually, writing tasting notes in exam conditions, before reflecting on them to guess the wine region – this is one quarter of the tasting exam!
Wednesday
Wednesday was a day focussed on developing new products for the Cellar Door shop, exploring new suppliers and branded products for the summer. We’ve got some lovely new products in the shop with more coming over the next few weeks. We try to source food and wine related products from the local area as much as possible. New products include beautiful locally made chocolates, local gluten free biscuits for cheese and recycled plastic placemats.
