How I started my own winery

Daniel Schwarzenbach, 43, gave up his high-powered corporate job in the UK to retrain as a winemaker. Now he’s living his lifelong dream.

"When I met Ursula in Switzerland 14 years ago we talked about my ambition to plant my own vineyard, build a winery and market the wine under my own label. I could see her doubts. In Switzerland it would be virtually impossible to plant a new vineyard because most of the land there is either handed down through the family or extremely expensive. I managed to convince Ursula to marry me and come to New Zealand, where I had been raised from the age of nine. Now we are doing exactly what I longed to do when I was a medical chemist and microbiologist in a big Surrey hospital medical laboratory. I was second in charge, then, and hated it!

"We now own and run our family vineyard, Blackenbrook, in Nelson and raise our two kids out in the country – a wonderful lifestyle many can only dream about. This has certainly freed me from the pressures of corporate life which I found hard going. Of course, running our own business has brought worries of a different type, like inclement weather, working to a tight budget, finding and keeping a great vineyard team and keeping up wine sales in a difficult economy. But we are self-employed, we make the decisions and it's our name on the label.

"I love working outside, being back at a grass roots level and living with the change of seasons. I feel a lot more in balance now than I did during all the years spent in the lab. Balance is what I strive for in the vineyard and in our wines.
We are a little proud when we walk through our luscious vineyard, look over our gravity-fed winery and later open a bottle of Blackenbrook wine on our deck. This is exactly what I hoped to achieve when I embarked on my postgraduate viticulture studies at Lincoln back in 1993.

"When setting about changing your life, I think it’s important to
•    Be clear about what you want to achieve and not to lose focus
•    Get a sound education and research your chosen field
•    Work to the budget
•    Don't give up! It's not always a bed of roses, but believe in your dream!

"We still have bare land on which to expand our production and we want to specialize further in the aromatic varieties of riesling, pinot gris and gewürztraminer. But our aim is to stay physically in control and put our own stamp on every bottle of Blackenbrook wine. At harvest time I’m out there sorting every single bucket of fruit. Anything that’s not right gets biffed and then I’m 100 percent confident of what’s going into the tanks. I really believe that if you get it right in the vineyard, that’s where the great wine comes from. When I worked for big companies there was none of that interaction with every step.

"We like the fact that when Ursula and I have a board meeting, it’s at the dining table. If we reach production of about 5000 cases, that’s probably the limit to where we can stay this hands on. We would like to build a sustainable business that hopefully our children will take over one day!"

Interview by Rosalind Le Bas Walker. Photo by Veronique Cornille.