Morven-Jayne McAuley

Custodian of the not serious wine chats nz, Morv acts as moderator for the podcasts and writes the odd article. A brand, sales and marketing strategist with over 20 years experience in the wine industry she has the deep connections that come with it. Morv originally trained as a goldsmith, working in New York and London before returning home to work in the family wine business. Morv is the founder and director of Tradecraft, where she works as a consultant to a number of well known wine brands. Before this, she was an account manager for leading NZ wine distributor, Negociants NZ and worked as NZ sales and global brand manager for Antipodes Water Company. She is deeply passionate about seeing New Zealand’s boutique producers thrive and find their place in the hands of passionate foodies across Aotearoa and the world. She was dying for Dom to bring Not Serious Wine Chats to NZ and offered to lend a hand. Partial to a glass of fizz, Morv’s go-to is a salt-rimmed mezcal margarita.

Dominique Fourie-McMillan

not serious wine chats was brought to life by Dominique. This is her baby (one of them). It was born from concern around the inaccessible and exclusive way wine was being conveyed to the people who pull their hard-earned dollars from their worn out wallets. At the time Dom worked in hospitality in Melbourne at Marion as she and husband, Chef Hayden McMillan, set up their own restaurant Etta Dining. After a decision to return to Aotearoa, this clever pair of hospo lifers opted to move to Wellington after meeting hospo heroes, Julie Clark and James Pedersen, stalwarts behind Floriditas and Loretta on Cuba. It wasn’t long before negotiations occurred and this tour of force partnered up to buy into these Wellington institutions. They have three beautiful young daughters, Sasha, Luca and Eddy. Dom’s go-to is the americano — in both caffeine and cocktail form.

Our mates Pete, John and Ash.

Pete Connell, John Connell & Ashley Roberts from By The Bottle help out by joining in the chats for our podcast and dropping some articles to the reading corner. They also, importantly, help us all out with the booze supply.

If you were to combine the resumé of these dreamboats it would include world-class restaurants such as London’s two michelin star Ledbury and the famous River Cafe and the absolute mammoth Hakkasan Group. Closer to home their hospo endeavours include Melbourne’s beloved Stokehouse and much revered Cumulus Up and Vinoteca and right here in Aotearoa they have Auckland city’s hot spots covered like, Ahi, Onslow by Josh Emett and Oyster Inn. And that’s just the hospo section. The comprehensive curriculum vitae would also list leading wine distributors like Liberty Wines in London. Safe to say, this trio has a collective finger on the pulse when it comes to supplying good gear.

Brothers Pete, a qualified winemaker and John, a qualified viticulturist already had the makings of a wine brand boy band but add Ashley in there, with her degree in marketing and her vision to make good juice look great and just like David Bowie had his Kenneth Pitt, this boy band has their visionary band manager in her.

This ridiculously over-qualified but utterly laidback threesome appeared on our radar when they moved to Auckland from Melbourne to set up an online wine store — By The Bottle. The store made an impression with us because it felt inclusive, casual but curated and featured interesting makers doing interesting things. Pour us a German Riesling because that schizzle is right up our strasse.

Join By The Bottle — or visit them IRL at their wine store, 811 Mt Eden Road, Auckland.