Portavin Sydney – open for business

As Australasia’s leading independent wine services provider, Portavin proudly announces its expansion into New South Wales, through an agreement with McWilliam’s Wines. 

On October 4th, Portavin assumed management of McWilliam’s bottling facility at the Sydney suburb of Chullora, where we will service both McWilliam's and other New South Wales/ACT producers.    Our commitment to upgrading the Chullora facility will add another world class contract packaging services to our existing five sites.

Mike Davies, Portavin Executive Chairman explains “This agreement consolidates our ongoing relationship with McWilliam's whilst completing our In Market contract bottling network throughout Australia and New Zealand.”

Eddie Price will be the General Manager of this new site.  Eddie has a strong background in wine industry management including ten years at Amberley Estate in Margaret River, three years as General Manager of Portavin Victoria and more recently as acting General Manager of Portavin W.A.

Speaking on his new role, Eddie said “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.

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!”

To find out more about Portavin Sydney’s services, contact Eddie Price on 0448 121 362 or eddie.price@portavin.com

Portavin at 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 40 000 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 trophies in WA

Closer to home, Portavin continued to support WA wine shows in 2011 and congratulates the following winners of Portavin sponsored trophies along with all trophy and medal winners from these shows:

Perth Royal Wine Show, Best Wine of Show won by Chateau Reynella 2009 Shiraz. 

Swan Valley Wine Show, Best Verdelho won by Talijancich Reserve 2003 Verdelho.

Geographe Wine Show, Most Successful Exhibitor won by Willow Bridge Estate.

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 Australian 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!

Welcome to new team members

We want to take this opportunity to welcome some new, and returning staff to our team.

The bottling crew at Margaret River has been bolstered by the return of Brett Larsen (after a few years in the IT industry) and the appointment of Gary Miller and Andy Waylen.

Adam Warner joins the Perth bottling crew, heralding from Portavin South Australia we are happy he has ventured west.

With the restructure of our management team, we are pleased to have Dave Cleary (Production Manager) and Michele Smith (Managing Accountant) fill the positions left vacant with Anthony Davis and Gerlinde Watson’s progress up the management ladder.

And we are also really happy to have two special ladies back in the admin. team, Sarise and Jessie.

Automatic in-line sparging

Effective immediately, Portavin is delivering a quality focussed initiative, free of charge for all wines delivered to our static bottling sites.

We have upgraded our standard operating procedures to now include in-line sparging with nitrogen gas for all wines as they are unloaded from tankers at either of our Margaret River or Perth sites. Until now, the process of unloading, analysing and seeking authorization to sparge wines meant we lost time bringing wines back into spec. Now, by implementing this initiative, we effectively help maintain a quality focus and at a cost saving to you.

We are convinced this procedure is in the best interest of your wine’s quality and will provide this service unless you specify that you do not wish your wine to be sparged.

We are also happy to operate under established operational guidelines specific to your wines.  For example, you might ask us only to sparge your wines in-line if tanker DO exceeds 0.5ppm.

For any questions you may have, please contact Peter Walker on peter.walker@portavin.com.au

Meet Aaron Watson- Portavin bottling operator

Aaron Watson grew up near Merredin in the wheat belt area of WA. After many generations on the land, his family moved to Perth, where his father started a transport business… but farming was still in Aaron’s blood.

Aaron studied at the Gnowangerup Agricultural College after which he worked for 18 months on a cattle feed lot for Janet Holmes A Court at HB Holdings in Jurien Bay.  He then moved to the south west of WA where he worked on another cattle feed lot for four years. When work there became quiet, Aaron took up a casual job as a fork lift driver for Portavin. Soon after, his wife became pregnant with their first son, Rocco.

Time to get serious! 

So Aaron approached his boss at Portavin about a full time position. It was then that Aaron was given the role of bottling line operator some five years ago.

Aaron’s typical day at Portavin involves running the bottling line, training new staff and moving between the Margaret River and Perth lines. Aaron explains “What I like about working at Portavin is that from the bottom to the top, this company is united in our goal of putting out a premium product and making the company bigger and better. The recent news about opening a Sydney site is a great boost for the business and makes us all proud. I also enjoy good work/life balance which makes for a happy family life. I really have landed on my feet here.”

Aaron lives in Busselton with his family and recently welcomed another baby boy, Lucas. Aaron has built a house and renovated a couple of others.  He also works on a property running 1 500 sheep and 150 head of cattle. Somehow Aaron still finds time to Jet Ski, fish, holiday with his family and play golf.  Aaron quips “golf is definitely my handicap but I love it.”