Many roads to harvest

As the first grapes are plucked from the vines, Marlborough’s population will swell with more than 1000 skilled workers.

They come from all corners of the globe, their contribution vital to the region that supplies threequarters of the country’s grapes.

For Framingham Wines, its first grapes in 2019 were harvested on March 4. However this year, the company hoped to pick their first grapes of the season on Saturday.

One person ready to tackle harvest was Violette Philbert, 31, who arrived in Blenheim two weeks ago.

‘‘I went to business school. In my last year I did a Masters in Wine, Business and Spirits. I wanted to work in wine marketing, but I didn’t find a job.’’

Instead, she worked in a reading glasses business for four years. ‘‘I was quite happy. . . but in the end I thought I was missing out on something by not working with wine.’’

Philbert had already worked in a winery in Barossa Valley,

Australia for six months before coming to Marlborough for harvest. ‘‘A friend told me about Framingham, I looked on their website and fell in love with their marketing.’’

Philbert’s colleague, Ben Messing, 23, had his first harvest last year in Napa Valley, California. ‘‘I did an apprenticeship as a winemaker in Germany, I didn’t want to start uni yet because I wanted some experience,’’ he said.

Growing up in a wine region in Germany, Messing said people around him always had an interest in sauvignon blanc.

‘‘Marlborough makes the best sauvignon in the world so I came here,’’ Messing said.

Seven kilometres down the road from Framingham, Antonios Alifragkis, 34, was working at Hunter’s Wines, on holiday from his permanent job at a winery in his home country of Greece.

‘‘As far as I’ve seen, the way that New Zealand works with sauvignon is different to the way that we are doing it, so already that’s interesting for me,’’ he said.

‘‘I’m trying to find a way to make our sauvignon more tropical, like New Zealand’s style is, so I’m taking a lot of ideas from here back home.’’