Portavin opens in Sydney

As Australasia’s leading independent wine services provider, Portavin’s expansion into New South Wales began on October 4th, when we assumed management of McWilliam’s bottling facility at the Sydney suburb of Chullora.  Here, we are servicing both McWilliams and other New South Wales/ACT producers for all wine bottling and packaging requirements.    Our commitment to upgrading the Chullora facility will add another world class contract packaging services to our existing five Portavin sites around Australasia.

General Manager Eddie Price explains “I am delighted to lead this exciting venture on behalf of the entire Portavin team. It’s not often that a new business operation gets to inherit a well established, experienced and highly skilled workforce and is able to begin life with a major existing client as their foundation customer.

As we look to develop Portavin’s operations in the Sydney market over the next few years, I am sure that both of those beginnings will stand us in very good stead.

From a business perspective, the addition of a facility in Sydney completes the Portavin model of providing our customers with bottling and packaging options in all of the major markets across Australia and New Zealand and provides enormous opportunities for our customers and for Portavin staff to tap into that network.

From an operational perspective, whilst the initial focus will be firmly on ensuring that we continue to provide the McWilliams group with the very high standard of services that they are accustomed to, we will also look to integrate those operations into the broader Portavin system and to develop our capability for carrying out contract bottling and packaging services to new clients.

I am very much looking forward to the challenge of getting to know the members of the Portavin NSW team better and to learning about the intricacies of the operation. In particular, bottling both spirits and sparkling wine will be ‘firsts’ for Portavin in general and for me personally.

As a lifelong ‘southern states’ person I guess it will also be my duty to learn the niceties of that funny game where you have to throw the ball backwards when you want to go forwards - but I’m sure that I will find plenty of people keen to help me get over my appetite for ‘Aussie No Rules’ as I believe it is known.

Bring it on!”

The Melbourne Wine Show

Portavin is proud to sponsor the 2011 Royal Melbourne Wine Show to be held in late October.  This commitment to Australia’s largest wine show is our way of thanking customers around the nation and showing our support for the wine industry at large.  This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Jimmy Watson Memorial trophy and a range of tastings and events have been organised to mark the occasion.

As part of our affiliation with the Wine Show, Portavin Melbourne undertook the logistics of receiving over 15 000 bottles of exhibitors’ wine, all delivered to us in the space of a week. 

The Royal Melbourne Wine Show was first held in 1884 and this year sees some exciting initiatives including a Preshow Masterclass, the introduction of some new classes and of course, the celebrations around the 50th presentation of the Jimmy Watson Trophy. 

The show awards dinner will be held on Thursday October 27th.  Good luck to all entrants and hope to see you there.

Portavin’s CFO - Telstra Business Woman of the Year finalist

Portavin Group’s Chief Financial Officer, Gerlinde Watson, was recently voted a finalist for the 2011 West Australian Telstra Business Woman of the Year in the Hudson Private and Corporate Sector Award. 

This was a great honour for Gerlinde, who is one of the few female CFOs in any Western Australia business.

Gerlinde began with Portavin in 2001, having completed a Bachelor of Business.  After 5 years as Administration Manager, Gerlinde was promoted to General Manager for Portavin’s Western Australia division. She was recently appointed to the newly created role of Group CFO, responsible for the financial management of 150 employees and six sites in Australia and New Zealand.  

Gerlinde is part of the executive group steering the company’s diversification into new products and markets and explains “my management style is to take the focus off what’s not working and shift it to how it can work.  The award is welcome recognition of the positive direction in which Portavin is heading.”

Congratulations Gerlinde!