Jasmine Black first arrived at Greystone in 2019 through a little word of mouth- but her passion and love for winemaking has seen her stay, and flourish in the Greystone family.

The Canadian has spent the past 10 years winemaking all over the world.

“My mum was a chef, so I was surrounded by food from an early age and always loved it, then that eventually led me to loving wine as well.”

But her path hasn’t been a straightforward one.

“I actually studied hydrology and climatology at university. I started working in the field and I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I thought I would. So, I went back to school to become a sommelier. That was my life for about seven years, and I kept falling more in love with wine. My ex-partner was a winemaker, so I started hanging out at his winery and became more connected to the product and where it comes from.”

Then a move to California for vintage in 2013 changed her whole trajectory.

“I absolutely fell in love with it, so I got home, quit my job, moved out west and went back to school to study viticulture and didn’t really look back.”

Jasmine arrived from Canada on a two-year working holiday visa, and after her initial stint at Greystone, worked all over Canterbury growing vegetables at a nursery, calf rearing on a dairy farm and working in hospitality. She kept on coming back to Greystone for vintage though.

Greystone eventually drew her back in for a full-time role in the winery in February of last year. But Jasmine was looking for more.

“I started the conversation with Dom, Nick, and Stephen just to see what kind of opportunities there might be for me for further work, for something new and to tap into skills that I haven’t used in a while.”

Jasmine will now take on the role as our full-time Marketing and Sales Coordinator, and as a trial, resume winery duties 2-3 days a week for vintage 2024.

“It’ll just be enough to keep my hands in there a little bit and make sure I’m up to date with what’s going on and fuel that passion that I have for winemaking. It’s really helpful that I have experience in the other side of the business that I can share through sales and marketing. I’m just excited to connect with people that love our wines because I’ve been here helping make them for so long and I love them. It’ll be really special to then be able to share our story with others and hopefully make more people fall in love with the brand and the people behind it.”

At the top of Jasmine’s lengthy list of goals and ambitions for the role is re-invigorating the Greystone Wine Club.

“I think they want to see and hear stories; I want to bring them in and make them feel like they’re a part of our family. It’s easy to love the wines, they speak for themselves, but I’m more excited to share who our people are and have that human connection and people really feed on that.”