Heady stuff for boy from Poverty Bay

By YVETTE ADAMS

When New Zealand wines do well at wine competitions in London it is at least partly thanks to the Kiwi palate of Brett Fleming.

A Poverty Bay boy who trained at Nobilo Wines, he is the premium wine development manager for Constellation Wines Europe, whose parent company in January bought BRL Hardy to become the largest wine group in the world.

As part of his role, Fleming does a lot of wine judging and from time to time chairs the judging panels for Australian and New Zealand wines.

It is a career, he says, that he "fell into by accident".

He was raised in the wine centres of Gisborne and Hawkes Bay, but left school to pursue an electrical apprenticeship.

"But I hated it so I chucked it in and got a job at Nobilo as an assistant production manager."

Nick Nobilo, who was managing director at the time, recognised that the youngster had an ability to recognise wine.

"He encouraged me to get involved in all aspects of wine making and my love affair with wine developed. I've never looked back."

In 1985 Fleming headed to Australia and then to France, where he learned about wine-making in the classic regions of Bordeaux, Champagne and the Rhone Valley.

In Britain, he worked for Andrew Gordon Wines as a warehouse manager and was launched on a rollercoaster ride as the company was taken over by Hardys of Australia, merged into BRL Hardy, and then taken over by US liquor group Constellation Brands in a $2 billion deal to form the world's largest wine group.

As the company grew, says Fleming, "I got promoted".

His present job involves driving the message of premium quality to everyone from journalists and consumers to sales staff and wine makers.



With his practised palate, Fleming also gets to judge at the International Wine Challenge and the International Wine and Spirit competition every year where he chairs the New Zealand and Australian panels "which is great fun".

Getting paid to judge wine, either at competitions or as part of his daily work, is, he says, "a pretty groovy job".

"On an average day I'll taste 60 to 100 wines. I certainly taste or drink wine every day.

"I'm very passionate about the wines we produce as a company ... and when you pull a cork and see the smile on the face of someone tasting it, you know you're in the right job."

Fleming says after more than 15 years in Britain he feels completely at home. "I'm in the UK because of my job.

"The great thing about the UK is, although it does make some wine, it doesn't compete on a world stage, so it imports everybody else's and you get exposure to all the world wines."

So, if he could take just one bottle of wine on a desert island, what would it be?

"Probably champagne. My great love is champagne. It's just such a great drink which New Zealand is making some pretty flash examples of."