Morven Jayne McAuley

Owner and Producer of not serious wine chats, Morv moderates 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 abroad 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 food and booze curious folk across Aotearoa. Partial to a glass of fizz, Morv’s go-to is a salt-rimmed mezcal margarita — unless a fungi pizza is on the menu — then she’s all over a grunty Chenin Blanc or a refined but chunky Chardy.

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.

Dominique Fourie-McMillan

not serious wine chats was brought to life by Dominique and some of her hospo friends years back in Aussie. This was Dom’s 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. Concerns shared by Morv and a topic they oft discussed over a Zoom meeting with a fine wine in hand — time difference be damned. As life changed and Dom and her husband, Chef Hayden McMillan (hospo lifers the pair of them) moved from Melbourne to Wellington to invest in Floriditas and Loretta on Cuba, Dom’s busy schedule meant Morv took on the Not Serious project in its entirety.
Dom and Morv remain solid and supportive pals. They have each other’s back.
While Morv continues to get more Not Serious, you can now find Dom hosting her own podcast, Kitchen Day - made with and made for hospo. Dom’s go-to thirst quencher is the americano — in both caffeine and cocktail form.