The Science of Wine – Victoria Raw

English born, Raw has been an integral part of the Food & Plant Research team based in Marlborough for nine years. Her role is one none of her teachers, friends or family could ever have predicted. After all, why does a Londoner, who spent her early years at a French language primary school, with no background in farming, end up in Edinburgh undertaking an agriculture degree? More-so, how does someone undertaking such a degree end up working in the New Zealand wine industry 20 years later?

Good questions, Raw says. 

“I came here via so many different countries.”

Back to the beginning. Born in Central London, Raw headed to Edinburgh University to undertake an agricultural degree. With no background in this field, she to this day doesn’t really know why she chose this course.

“Who really knows what they want to do when they go to university?” she says. “I knew that the degree would give me a strong biological science background. As I had a grounding in three modern languages , I thought they could be an added bonus  in an agricultural career.”

In her third year, Raw undertook the ERASMUS Programme and went to Angers, France for a year.  Prior to leaving Edinburgh, she rang to see what electives were available.

“The person that I spoke to said I could do subjects such as oenology and viticulture. I was like, ‘What’s oenology?’ And just as I was about to head to the dictionary, he said it was winemaking.  It was a case of either doing those electives, or something else that I didn’t think I would like. So I went for it.”

She admits that her eyes were opened during the year, particularly the work she was doing in the university’s small vineyard.

“I never realized at the time that it was going to become my career. I enjoyed what I was doing, and remember thinking this is really fun, but I will probably never get to do this again.”

Little did she know.

After Angers, it was back to Edinburgh to finish her fourth year. After graduating she worked for a small independent wine merchant in Edinburgh. Her employers put her through the first stages of the WSET course, which helped improve her wine knowledge and gave her the idea of a career in sales and marketing. When she discovered Dijon University had a wine marketing course, Raw began planning to head back to France. 

To fill in time before the Dijon course began, she decided to gain further work experience by working in Portugal for a port wine lodge in sales and marketing.

“But by the end of three weeks I  realised that this wasn’t for me.”

After chatting with a winemaker, she convinced him she could be put to better use in the winery’s laboratory which led to  a vintage in that role. It was a turning point in her life she admits and encouraged by some Australian winemakers  she decided to take a closer look at the winemaking and viticulture degree at Adelaide University.

“There was a lot of enthusiasm about the industry in Australia and the study opportunities. So I thought, right I’m not going to France, I am going to go and find out what’s happening in Australia and New Zealand.”

So from  London, to Edinburgh, to France, back to Edinburgh, to Oporto and now Adelaide where she completed a  graduate diploma in viticulture. That was it, she now knew being out among the vines was where she wanted to be.

“I realized that as much as I enjoyed working in a (winery) lab, my chemistry background wasn’t at the level it should be for winemaking. My biological sciences and my agriculture background meant I was more suited to viticulture and that was where my interest was.”

Raw admits that her career path once she had completed her graduate diploma wasn’t all that clear. She began looking at options, one of which was the New Zealand wine industry. 

Arriving in 2000, she worked for Corbans Wines where she was put to work straight away – out in the field, and later for Pernod Ricard.

“At the beginning I did a bit of everything within the vineyards– pruning, harvesting, disease assessments, yield estimates and lab work during harvest time. We had a nursery at the time, so I was involved with that and spent the winter planting out the Pernod Ricard Waipara vineyard. It was very hands on, which is exactly what I wanted. I then moved to doing more R and D work as the viticultural technician.” During this period Raw worked closely with the Hort Research (now Plant & Food) scientists who were using the company vineyards for trial work.

In 2006 she moved to work as a Research Associate at HortResearch.

“I think it was the 100 percent science that attracted me. I did a lot of viticulture technical work under the Pernod flag, which I really enjoyed . But being with other people doing similar work, I thought that I would learn even more. I was right. In this environment this is all we do; we work collaboratively with other Plant & Food colleagues as well as with scientists at Auckland and Lincoln universities.”

As a Research Associate, Raw says she has the “privilege” of working on a number of different projects. They range from being a part of the large PGP Lifestyle Wine Programme, through to collating information for VineFacts, a subscription-based viticulture email service that is sent out once a week from early October until the end of April every year. While initially this service focused on Marlborough only, this past season has seen it become a much larger service, providing information for most wine regions in New Zealand. 

“Each year is so different, that for me is really nice but there are some things that carry through on a regular basis. They are my stability and where I see myself growing in the future.”

With a life that has travelled many paths, through many countries and many different career choices, Raw says it is hard to believe she has finally found her niche.

“I never ever thought that this is where I would end up. But, while (long term) plans are great, surprises are even better.”

Victoria Raw and Rob Agnew will be presenting a workshop on VineFacts at the Romeo Bragato conference in Hawke’s Bay later this year.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.