Louis Latour Agencies

A glass of wine with Neil Hadley MW

07 August 2014

Neil Hadley, Wakefield Wines export manager, is a frequent visitor to the UK and on a recent visit we asked him a few questions to find out what makes him tick and a bit more about why he’s so passionate about the Clare Valley and Wakefield Wines.

How did you first get into the wine business?

I took a job with Lay and Wheelers as a shop assistant. Two great strokes of luck came with that: firstly Lay and Wheelers at the time were totally committed to WSET staff training all the way up to Diploma Level, and secondly the manager of my particular branch was Yvonne May, who has gone on to greater and greater things but certainly set the scene for all of us that wine and the UK wine trade could be a springboard to a lifetime of adventure, friendships and fun.

Tell us about your day job, how does the experience of being a Master of Wine help you?

As a Master of Wine my “day job” is heading our Export sales around the world. But when I drop back in from around the world I make it my business to bring ideas and provocations to our chief winemaker, Adam Eggins and his team.  I work on constantly encouraging a view of what else is out there, what are the styles and the standards we are competing against. And how can we do better?

And how about the Wakefield Wines vineyard, can you tell us more about why its such a special place to grow vines?

The vineyard is large at around a thousand acres but it sits in a natural bowl, surrounding our winery in the southern Clare Valley. This means we have a great mix of soil structures and aspects – for example east-facing slopes for Riesling to soak up the morning sun and the more western-facing  sites giving afternoon sun ripening to some of our best Shiraz blocks. Clare Valley tends to demand sustainable farming practices because of the low availability of supplementary water. So we committed to ISO14001-based “Eco-Mapping” a long while back.

Climate change is an import topic in todays world, what are you doing at Wakefield Wines to combat and adapt to it? 

We continue to monitor changes. There are some that say the Clare will become the Barossa Valley in about 50 years’ time.  The main thing to note is that wine and humans are very adaptable. So dealing with climate change at a local action level is really more about ensuring your wine choices are in step with prevailing realities. I’m far happier to be in an Australian scenario facing this challenge than in the straight-jacket of European regional wine laws!

As a family-owned business, what strategies are in place to ensure things run smoothly?

Everyone from the family who wants to be in the business is required to pull their weight and to attain the experience and/or qualifications required to do their jobs. This engenders mutuality and respect in the entire business and a true sense that the Taylor family are part of the team.

What do you see yourself doing in 5 to 10 years time?

Selling excellent wines to people who want to drink excellent wines, across a scale of prices not just to an elite few. We recently saw a line that we are thinking of adopting as a mantra and it certainly reflects my basic intention as to what kind of winery and winemaking idea I wish to be representing: We make ‘wine that tastes like wine for people who like wine’.