Clearview Estate strengthens sales team to ‘spread the love’

Clearview Estate strengthens sales team to ‘spread the love’

Running on the back of an unprecedented string of accolades for a diverse range of Chardonnays, Clearview Estate, on Hawke’s Bay Te Awanga coast, has increased its in-house sales team from one to three.

There will now be a full-time Clearview Estate-focused sales representative servicing Auckland, and another part-time rep concentrating on the top of the South Island.

“The run of successes we’ve had this year demonstrates the consistent quality of our wines and strategically our owners and senior management team have acknowledged that we need to put greater focus on our sales, and ultimately better service in these key areas,” says Charles Gear, general manager sales and marketing. “Essentially we want to ‘spread the love’ and share Clearview Estate wines further afield.”

Prior to appointing Nigel Kelly into the Auckland region (effective from 1 December 2016), Clearview had a contracted agent who offered a portfolio of wines. Now Kelly, who has extensive experience in the wine and spirit industry in New Zealand and London, will be concentrating solely on presenting Clearview Estate wines to the restaurant sector and on premise trade.

Annika Bennett is covering the very top of the South Island on a part-time basis, combining her Clearview role with her board trustee and directorships of arts related organisations. Based in Nelson, her primary focus will be on the Nelson, Golden Bay and Marlborough areas.

“It might be considered taking coals to Newcastle, selling wines into New Zealand’s largest wine producing region but we’re filling in the gaps, especially with our top end Chardonnays, not to mention our fantastic full bodied reds,” says Tim Turvey, co-owner, co-founder and original winemaker.

While winning awards for its wine is no novelty for the family-owned boutique winery and restaurant located near Cape Kidnappers, this year has seen an exceptional array of accolades.

“The micro-climate that we experience at Te Awanga made 2015 a superb vintage for Chardonnay,” says Turvey. “We’ve had gold medal wins across all levels of our extensive Chardonnay range, with grapes from 30-year-old vines in the original homestead block proving to be outstanding.”

Demand has been strong with customers voting with their wallets, acknowledges Helma van den Berg, who co-owns and jointly established the historic winery and restaurant business.

White Caps Chardonnay 2016 has just been released ahead of Christmas, and Turvey says this will be followed by the release of the 2016 vintage of the popular Beachhead Chardonnay in mid to late February.

Kelly and Bennett join the existing Clearview Estate sales team of Lisa Clarke, who is based in Hawke’s Bay and covers the North Island up to Hamilton, and Andie Pearce of Palate Fine Wines, who is responsible for the lower half of the South Island.

“It’s exciting times for Clearview. We’re thrilled to be strengthening our team with the expertise of Annika and Nigel, along with the skills that winemaker Matt Kirby brings to this expansion of our sales team. We can’t wait to see what 2017 brings,” says van den Berg.

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