Our People
Crafting our wines is very much a partnership
Meet the team that share the same connection and love affair with growing and making distinctive wines from our region.
Kirsten Searle
OWNER AND PASSIONATE VINTNER
Kirsten’s background has given her a solid foundation to be at the helm at Matawhero. Her previous life was at Villa Maria Estate, where her passion for wines was ignited. Upon moving to Gisborne in 2002 to marry Richard (and mid-way through starting their family) her winery roots were re-activated when Matawhero became available for sale. Kirsten and Richard’s “dependents” suddenly became three children under four, a dog, a cat, a vineyard and an old winery. As with managing a family, considerable time, focus and patience is required to reintroduce a dormant, yet legendary, wine label back to the market.
Richard Searle
OWNER AND THE NUMBERS GUY
Richard always knew he wanted to move back to his birthplace Gisborne for family, lifestyle and his passion for the surf. He managed his family vineyard after returning from London as part of a long OE where his accounting background was put to use.
Kim Crawford
THE WINE GURU
Our relationship with Kim all started with growing fruit for him in the late 1990s under the KC brand. Many years later, casually, over a glass of wine (as many good business relationships are formed), he offered to come and lend a hand with crafting our Matawhero wines.
Kim has always had a soft spot for Gisborne, and after working with fruit from our region for over 30 years, we think he is pretty well placed to guide us through making the best wine we can. Kim comments, “whilst Gisborne can be a difficult region from both a viticulture and winemaking perspective, when you get it right the flavours and fruit weight are unmatched”.
Keri Wanoa
ADMINISTRATION AND LOGISTICS
Keri has joined the Matawhero team to keep our back engine running. Our organised office queen, Keri grew up in our beautiful region and has always called Gisborne home. She loves nothing better than a good old fashioned Kiwi BBQ with whanau, shooting hoops with her boys and gathering kaimoana from our amazing local Tairawhiti beaches!
Sally Gaddum
CELLAR DOOR MANAGER
Sally has lived in the Tairawhiti Gisborne region for many year raising three boys on a farm with her husband at Matawai. Now retired from farm life, Sally is passionate about working with people and looks forward to welcoming all our wine travellers to our Cellar Door and accommodation cabins. Her other loves in life are cycling, art and travelling.
Paul Tietjen
AN ICONIC CHARDONNAY GROWER
PT as he is affectionately known to all around the Gisborne district, planted his first grapes in 1983 and it was Chardonnay! The famous Tietjen vineyard has grown many Gold medal Chardonnays over these years and most of our Chardonnay fruit at Matawhero is harvested from this block on the Golden Slopes sub region of Gisborne.
The Briant family
THREE GENERATIONS OF GROWERS
Pete, Fraser and Blake Briant have been farming in the Gisborne region for three generations. During this time they have been involved in not just grape growing but dairy, citrus, mixed cropping of maize, sweetcorn and tomatoes to name a few, apples, kiwifruit and sheep and beef – a testament to Gisborne’s fertile soils and the ability to grow an abundance of produce.
Pete planted his first vineyard in 1996, and was one of Kim’s original growers from Gisborne. 20 years on, it is lovely to see this relationship continue into Matawhero.
