Ben Glover: Learning to let go and start giving back

Ben Glover, 52, is the leading force behind The Coterie in Marlborough, New Zealand. In this collaborative space he makes the fruit of his family vineyards into the wines of his brands Zephyr, Bob Short for Kate, Massey Dacta and Spoke – the latter is a co-project with UK-based merchant Liam Steevenson MW.

While Ben’s story neatly traces the rise of Marlborough as the powerhouse of New Zealand’s wine industry, he has now come full circle. With The Coterie, he has, ‘established a place for the next generation to come make their wine, rock the world and show off Marlborough in a provocative and new light. Without barriers and with an open collective collaborative culture,’ he says.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores for wines from Ben Glover

Paying it forward

The Coterie is a culmination of sorts, and a realisation. ‘Before Covid, I just wanted to do everything myself,’ Ben says. ‘But you really can’t, you’ve got to let go and start giving.’ By this he means giving youngsters the same opportunities he enjoyed as Marlborough – New Zealand’s biggest wine region – grew rapidly.

New Zealand went from 2,600 hectares in 1981 to almost 42,000ha in 2023, according to figures from the Wine Institute of New Zealand. From this total, 71% of those hectares are in Marlborough, where Sauvignon Blanc now accounts for 81% of plantings, according to The New Zealand Winegrowers Vineyard Report 2023.

‘All growers and business owners are brand owners who need to look after “Brand Marlborough”,’ says Ben. ‘That means paying it forward; that’s what the pioneers did. We’re now at a phase where Marlborough desperately needs those again.’ The Coterie is intended to be part of this – and the Glovers’ farming background is key to the idea of expressing the land and region.

Farming families

Ben’s earliest memories are following his father ‘in the long grass, trying to keep up with him, feeding our cows’ when the family were dairy farmers in Blenheim, Marlborough. As the oldest of four children, he learned to drive a tractor at age 10. ‘Just good, honest New Zealand rural life,’ he says.

Farming friends had done well with a relatively new crop and so in 1988, 15 years after the first vines had been planted in the region, Ben’s parents, Wendy and Owen Glover, also planted 8ha of vines and switched from dairy to grape farming.

‘That’s where it really started,’ says Ben. ‘One minute I was out with cattle, the next I was weeding these horrible vines that just kept wanting to grow.’

Those first 8ha were Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Semillon, grown as a cash crop to be sold as sparkling base wines to Australia. But the family had also branched out into garlic and deer farming. Ben describes his father as ‘a pretty diversified farmer, entrepreneurial. It shaped how I see the land. I’m not a very good scientist. Chemistry doesn’t excite me, it’s very much hands-on, observational.’

This is why, eventually, he hit on oenology and viticulture after neither law nor accounting held his attention. Ben discovered he, ‘really liked wine, the making side of it. Winemaking can live in the grey space of your brain; it does not have to be black and white,’ he says.

Riding the wave

On graduating, Ben thought he would take over the home farm, but his father – who was selling grapes to a certain Brent Marris, now of Marisco and The Ned fame – was in no mood to retire. ‘Luckily,’ Glover notes. Marris was ‘the dynamic young winemaker for Oyster Bay’, who had started his own side project in 1994.

That side project became Wither Hills. Marris offered the new graduate an opportunity to come on board his new project in 1998.

‘We had a fantastic time,’ Ben remembers. ‘We grew the Wither Hills brand. The first six years it was family-owned, then it was bought by Lion Nathan, a large multi-beverage company. Those years were brilliant,’ he adds, citing the dynamism of a changing industry.

‘It was just like riding a big Malibu surfboard on an endless break. I had a really cool, good mentor in Brent Marris – in winemaking and blending, but equally in selling wine and building relationships in the marketplace. For me it was brilliant to see, learn and understand all that.’

Learning curves

With these years of on-the-job training under his belt, 2007 became a pivotal year for Ben with two key developments. Upon the departure of Marris from Wither Hills, Ben became chief winemaker for the company and also started his own side project. He called it Zephyr, named after the classic Ford motorcar model, a family heirloom.

The Zephyr wines were made from the fruit on the Glover family farm, from the Kerseley vineyard which later became the Kerseley and Brawn Vineyards in the Dillons Point subregion of Marlborough where the deep silts lend a more savoury edge to the fruit. Parents Wendy and Owen did much to keep it rolling along.

Ben did this with his employers’ full permission. Increasingly, however, things at Wither Hills ‘got more and more corporate’ and so he switched to a head winemaker role at then family-owned Mud House in 2012. But when it was sold to Accolade in 2013, Ben was once again caught in a corporate culture.

‘It was pretty cut-throat,’ he remembers. ‘They were not too interested in longevity. It was a frustrating time. I left in 2016 and went live with Zephyr and the family business.’

A different focus

‘I haven’t really looked back,’ Ben admits. ‘Corporate structure tends to subdue or kill innovation because there’s so much pressure to deliver, but looking back, I took good discipline from that.’

The experience was crucial because he knows both sides of the industry: farming grapes, which is driven entirely by wildly different growing seasons; and corporate winemaking driven by supply, demand and global market forces.

Now, as a boutique winemaker he says: ‘It’s a hell of a lot tougher. It’s just how farming is. You’re relying on Huey upstairs to give you a good harvest.’

To solidify the Zephyr business, Ben and his wife Susie bought half of the vineyard from his parents in 2017, which by then had grown to 35ha.

‘We bought 15-odd hectares and converted them to organics straight away, another naive decision,’ he says. Susie, a schoolteacher by profession, is now a key part of the operation.

‘She’s extremely intuitive in regard to what needs to get done and how to get the best out of people, whether it’s a six-year-old child, a precocious 18-year-old or me, a 52-year-old man,’ says Ben.

But having made the big decision to shift the focus back on the home vineyards, an even bigger decision came along.

Coming full circle

‘In 2018, there was a once in a lifetime opportunity to buy a property in Marlborough that had come up for sale quietly,’ Glover says. ‘That was part of the Seresin Estate winery. An 8ha property with 3ha of vineyards and a 1,200-ton facility, simply stunning.’

Sue and Ben then clubbed together with friends and family to reinvent the vineyards and its winery as The Coterie. It is co-owned by the Glovers, their in-laws Sally and John Flanagan, Ben’s brother Jack Glover and Rhyan Wardman, chairman of local New Zealand airline Sounds Air and another wine industry veteran.

‘It was very much a decision with the heart and the head,’ Ben says about this innovative venture. ‘We set the business up as a custom crush facility focused on organics. We have 13 clients currently ranging from 1 ton to 400 tons of fruit. We want to promote organics and help anyone who’s in that space, give them a facility where they can thrive.’

He adds: ‘It’s a really tight-knit group. We’re all different, but that’s what’s exciting. You talk, discuss issues, problems, whatever. Sharing is key. I really enjoy that because it’s a bit of giving back.’

Ben loves that he returned to the vineyard, literally and figuratively. ‘I’m really enjoying doing more and more viticulture, tucking lifting wires and leaf plucking by hand. I don’t mind evolving back to that peace. I think that’s a really cool journey.’

Zephyr Wines at a glance

Founded: 2007

Owner: The Coterie

Average annual production: 60,000 cases

Vineyard area: 75ha

Key vineyards: Brawn Vineyards (organic) and Kerseley Vineyard in the Dillons Point subregion of Marlborough are the original Glover Family vineyards first planted in 1988. Brink Vineyard in Renwick, Wairau Valley, is Marlborough’s oldest organic vineyard planted in 1992. Alice Mills Estate is also in the Wairau Valley.

Varieties: Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir

Brands: Zephyr Wines, Massey Dacta and Bob short for Kate (a homage to Ben Glover’s sister who died of cancer a few years ago) are made from estate-owned vineyards, with some bought-in fruit for the latter. Spoke is made from estate-grown and bought-in fruit in a collaboration with UK merchant Liam Steevenson MW of Vineyard Productions in Bristol.

Ben Glover wines to try

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