Ep. 915 Sean Spratt | Uncorked

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This episode is brought to you by Vinitli International Academy, announcing the twenty fourth of our Italian wine ambassador courses to be held in London, Austria, and Hong Kong from the twenty seventh to the July 29. Are you up for the challenge of this demanding course? Do you wanna be the next Italian wine ambassador? Learn more and apply now at vinitiallyinternational.com. Hello, everybody. My name is Polly Hammond, and you are listening to Uncorked, the Italian wine podcast series about all all things marketing and communication. Join me each week for candid conversations with experts from within and beyond the wine world as we explore what it takes to build a profitable business in today's constantly shifting environment. In this episode, we are joined by Sean Spratt, owner and winemaker at Destiny Bay, New Zealand's only luxury wine brand. Today, we talk about the twenty plus year family journey that went from maybe making some wine in the garage to recently becoming the only New Zealand wine to be listed on the Place de Bordeaux. We touch upon everything from building a quiet brand to balancing exclusivity to the impact of climate change. Let's get into it. Sean Spratt, you get to fill one of my my New Zealand blocks. I get so few opportunities to interview New Zealanders, and I've used this as a chance to get you on the podcast. Welcome. Oh, thank you. Well, it's it's a pleasure. I'm, you know, as a as a as an expat Kiwi, I'm glad I still fill that criteria. So I know. I I do think that's funny. We've got two kiwi Kiwis in the room and nary an accent between us. No. That is right. No. And so you are the owner and winemaker, for at of Destiny Bay. And I was thinking about how to describe that because I've known you for so long, that sometimes I forget Destiny Bay is New Zealand's only super premium wine brand. Is that true? Is there anyone else who falls into that category? Yeah. I mean, there's there are a lot of people now that are are starting to move into that space. Certainly, when we started this out, gosh, twenty years ago, we were like, there was nobody even really close to what we were sort of doing in terms of, aspiration for the market that we're trying to go into as a, you know, true sort of luxury wine brand. Now we've got some people that are coming up close to it, and and a lot of people have sort of, you know, I I I'd like to think that maybe we, you know, helped, you know, maybe break a few ceilings along with that, but I think it's also probably, you know, a lot of it's, you know, the industry at large too. I do as far as I know, we are still deep, in the poll position in terms of of price leading. And as a Cabernet blend specialist, yeah, you know, certainly with some of the recent, reviews and and critic scores and winery winery of the year, we we do seem to to have the, the street cred to back that up a little bit. Right. And I I I do wanna talk about that, some of those reviews. But just for everyone listening, can you tell us a little bit about Destiny Bay? I know that, I, you know, I know that the world doesn't know New Zealand as well as you and I do. Yeah. Well, it wasn't you know, this wasn't a project where we came here. It's a family venture, so it's, my mother, and father, Anna Mike, and I started this, well, the first vines went in the ground in 2000, but we didn't come here with this, express purpose or goal of starting, you know, a a vineyard, let alone a Cabernet blend specialist vineyard on an island called Waihiki and, you know, in the sort of lower part of the South Pacific. It like so many other, you know, expats that live in this country, and and I'm sure you're you're on the same box. You know, we, my parents came to visit New Zealand, and fell in love with it from, you know, very different careers than the wine industry. Mike, my father, was a psychologist, but a, merger and acquisition specialist and and did a lot of, you know, marketing and brand development stuff and and along the way with that. And my mother was a microbiologist and chemist and and science, but it worked sort of professionally in the, in the technology sector. And it was on that trip where I visited with them that, you know, they'd done their first trip, I should say, and fell in love with it. By the time they came back, they were so depressed to go back to America that they started planning their next trip a year later, and I I knew immediately when they had come back that they were gonna move here even though they say they did not know. But that trip a year later then turned into a let's and go, you know, find a place to live in New Zealand. And I tagged along for the ride just as a a sanity check, I think, to make sure that, they weren't doing something completely crazy and, hey, a free plane ticket's a free plane ticket. So, and it was on that trip at the end of it that we stumbled across Waiheke Island at the end. And then as the course of a sort of another year went along, they went to look for, you know, a place that they want, some property and and, you know, with the hope to to, you know, build sort of the dream home. And they found a a section, and then there was this beautiful bowl shaped amphitheater, with some land for sale and cattle grazing on it. And, my mother sort of said those fateful words as they were looking at the one property and said, well, well, we could buy this one, and it's got a nice view and build a house on it. And and, jeez, all that land over there is, you know, looks looks sort of interesting and pretty affordable. You know, land's always a good investment. That's not something you'll hear about Waiheke anymore. Those words. That land over there is pretty and looks affordable. Yeah. Well, it was. And at that time, you would, at that time, it was, and and you certainly wouldn't be buying the land at the prices now to to plant grapes on it, unless you just had more money than you could possibly imagine. And so and then she sort of said those fateful words and said, oh, well, that looks like there's some good wines on the island. Maybe we could, put a couple of vines in the backyard and make some wine in the garage. And, you know, lo and behold, twenty years later, we're in a in a very different position. And that that was largely driven by the fact that when we started to look at it from a viticultural perspective and we looked back to the wines that inspired us and, in California, namely Ridge, you know, we had some we had a a very close friend of the family who was involved with Mondavi and, the Mondavi family and their ventures in Chile, when they had gotten into there years ago. And, and then talked with some, you know, viticulturists and came back and found out that this wasn't just a good place to grow grapes, but a fantastic place to grow grapes in Cabernet in particular. And so that's when we sort of saw we had this opportunity to do something, you know, not just to make a wine, but but perhaps to make something that was really, really special. And that that was really what was appealing is not to just start another vineyard and winery, but to, you know, really sort of shoot for the stars and, have the potential to do it. And so in that sense, we sort of felt like the Vineyard kinda picked us more than we picked it, you know, is is cliche as that might sound. But it wasn't this, yeah, it wasn't this sort of, you know, set out. Let's go to New Zealand. Let's find a perfect place to grow Cabernet and and whatnot. It was the evolution of it was was much more organic than that. It it wasn't the tech bros who made their money and and were like, hey. We're moving north. We're buying the lifestyle property kind of thing. One of the things that I love about the story, though, having met your family, is that your mom I mean, you became a winemaker. You studied at UC Davis. I'm not dismissing the importance of you and your dad, but your mom, who was a scientist,