JENNY DOBSON
Hawke’s Bay winemaker
When it came to choosing her path in life, Jenny Dobson followed her nose. “I have always been fascinated by aromas,” says Dobson. “My earliest memories are linked to smells. Once my interest in wine was sparked at quite a young age by tasting wine at the table with my parents, I was, and still am, stimulated by its diversity and complexity.”
She signed up for chemistry at Otago University, but found lab work dull and switched to food science. Back then, in the early 1970s, there was no such thing as a wine degree. So she quenched her thirst for knowledge with a stint at Barkers in Geraldine – who at the time made fruit wine – during holidays and on graduating. Founder Anthony Barker “had a great palate and love of German riesling. I developed my tasting skills while working and tasting with him”.
But it was when she headed to France that she knew she had found her vocation.
“After my first vintage at Domaine Dujac in Burgundy, picking grapes and working in the winery, I was hooked,” says the 62-year-old.
After two years at Domaine Dujac, Dobson moved to Paris and worked for Steven Spurrier at L’académie du Vin and Les Caves de la Madeleine, giving classes in wine-tasting. “The opportunity to taste such a diversity of wine allowed my wine knowledge and sensory skills to develop in leaps and bounds.”
From 1983 she worked at Château Sénéjac in the Médoc, north-west of Bordeaux – becoming one of the first female cellar masters, maître de chai, in the region. “When I first went to France I saw signs outside cellars ‘Interdit aux femmes’ – ‘No women allowed’,” she recalls. “It was believed, so I was told, that women had ‘funny’ acids in their bodies which would turn the wine to vinegar!”
Dobson ended up staying at Sénéjac for 14 vintages. Since the cellar master also got to make the wine, it was a brilliant schooling.
The secret to being a good winemaker? Dobson reels out a formidable list. As well as a willingness to learn and work hard, you need “Passion, along with a good grasp of logistics and planning. To be capable and embrace the holistic nature of wine. You have to be interested in the vineyard and the market, not just the winery. To have, or cultivate, a good taste memory and delight in diversity. To be flexible and adaptable. To challenge convention and tradition but highly respect it as well. Humility is important, but you also need confidence in your decision making.”
After 16 years, Dobson – by now a mumof-three married to British husband Charles – headed back to New Zealand (with a stint in Australia en route). She worked as a consultant, then as the first winemaker at Te Awa Farm in the Hawke’s Bay, and in 2013 she became the first Kiwi winemaker to commercially bottle a wine from the Italian white grape, Fiano. The grapes were grown in Ngatawara Road, Hawke’s Bay, by Bryce Campbell. “Bryce asked me in 2009 what he should plant. I suggested Fiano as I thought it would do well on his volcanic and river gravel soils. As Bryce’s father had served with the 2nd NZ Expeditionary Force in Italy in WWII and climbed Vesuvius (the home of Fiano) it had special meaning for him.”
The wine was labelled ‘Bush Hawk’, but these days Dobson is making Fiano under her own label – Jenny Dobson Hawkes Bay Fiano.