[IMAGE © NZ WINEGROWERS]
“I have known Colin Ford over a number of years, beginning with a stint he had as a sales representative for our New Zealand distributors, followed by my involvement with the Cuisine magazine wine tastings. Colin has a very sound knowledge of wine and the wine trade, and has a very good palate. He also has a great passion for the business, spurred by a great love of wine itself, and this has shown through in all my dealings with him. He was accepted into the education program of the Masters of Wine in 1997, and I was appointed as his mentor. I have confidence that his skill, enthusiasm and professionalism will see him join the ranks of the MWs.”
Michael Brajkovich, MW
Winemaker
Kumeu River Wines
Auckland, New Zealand
“Colin Ford has provided consulting services for our company for the last three years [now nine years] and is still employed in this role on an as-required basis. We have found him to be very professional in all our of dealings, he is punctual, polite and has a great eye for detail.
His role has been in marketing our range of winemaking services and selling our range of wine barrels. We would have no hesitation in recommending Colin for whatever role or opportunity that he would seek to take up.
Should you require any further information please contact our office.”
Guy Rutledge
Director
Vintech Pacific Wine Technologies
Auckland | Napier | Gisborne | Blenheim | Cromwell
New Zealand
“For more than 15 years Colin Ford was not only one of the main participants in WineNZ magazine’s tasting panel, he was also the co-ordinator or the group responses to the wines and was tasked with combining them into an authoritative overview of the tasting as a whole. In this role he was one of the magazine’s most important contributors.
He has a perceptive palate, a deep understanding of wine in general, and New Zealand wine in particular, as well as a clear and professional approach to the appreciation of wine. In recent times the magazine also commissioned him to write a number of features in which he undertook to explain and de-mystify some of the processes and procedures involved in the production of wine. They were very well received indeed.”
Martin Gillion
Past Publisher and Editor
WineNZ Magazine
New Zealand’s Only Wine Dedicated Magazine
Auckland, New Zealand
“My name is Valerian Khubulava, Russian executive with a vast food industry background. As I have become more tired from the corporate life an idea to start a winery came to be not such a big surprise. I bought some vineyards in the Republic of Georgia and started to look around for a proper experience to obtain. In the course of my exploration of the matter it appeared that the New Zealand winegrowers’ and winemaking expertise might be the most interesting based on the remarkable success of their wines in a world market in a very short period of time. Thereby I came across Mr. Colin Ford and his ‘Winework Solutions’ based in Auckland.
So I contacted Colin with the request to organize me a week-long professional study tour in Marlborough valley. It was a very difficult task because I needed to meet most important people from the industry – owners, winemakers, enologists, viticulturists, winegrowers and marketing executives. It was also important to meet those people from the different wineries – large, medium, small and boutiques. And I wanted to talk with them, and it was a first week after New Year day – everybody was supposed to have holidays. Mr. Ford made a remarkable job.
He managed to put together almost 15 meetings with all kind of professionals within six days. Above all these meetings were very informal, friendly and extremely cognitive. Colin made possible to meet important people from large companies – Cloudy Bay, Wither Hills, as well as such famous smaller companies like Fromm, Lawson’s Dry Hills, Forrest Estate and many others. The most important thing is that Mr. Ford is not a tour guide at all. Being a real wine professional with international experience he knew most of the people we had met.
One of the reasons all those people agreed to meet and to talk to me was that I had been introduced by Mr. Ford. His comments and our conversations helped me a lot in deeper understanding of the philosophy and dynamics of wine industry not only in New Zealand but in the world at large.
It is also worth mentioning that Colin is a very educated in many fields person – real gentleman. It was pleasure to spend a week with him on my tour. We talked about many interesting issues and spent an excellent time. He is also extremely well organized; logistics of the tour was perfect. And I also believe that we made good friends.”
Valerian Khubulava
Proprietor
Soso da ValiCo, LLC
Vienna, Austria
“Colin Ford’s extensive knowledge of wine, New Zealand wineries and the New Zealand wine trade have made significant and important contributions to the development of Via Pacifica Imports and provide key, ongoing support for all aspects of our business. He is thoroughly professional, blending integrity, reliability, honesty, wisdom and good humor into all he does. Via Pacifica is indeed fortunate to be working with him.”
Howard & Shelly Kalmer
Via Pacifica Imports, LLC
Importers of Fine New Zealand Wines
California, USA
“We met Colin Ford at the Auckland Wine Trade Show in September 2000. We were initially impressed by his interest in our wines as well as the range of expertise he had acquired or had access to. We have been working with Colin over the last few months and have always found him to be entirely professional. He not only has an extremely good and discerning palate but has an in depth knowledge of the wine industry as a whole. Colin has a great deal of integrity and we would not hesitate to recommend his services to others in the wine industry. We feel very fortunate to count Colin as a good friend.”
Gary & Valley Neale
Brightwater Vineyards
Nelson New Zealand
“We thank Colin Ford and his team from Winework Solutions for the superb manner in which they organised and conducted the tasting…”
The Wine Magazine
Australian Gourmet Traveller
Australia
“Just a short note to say thanks very much for your presentation at the Duxton Hotel on Sunday.
The wine tasting was the ideal interlude between our sessions and gave our members a great opportunity to learn a little more about wines and their respective origins.
Thanks again Colin – and thanks also to Chris and Jean for their contribution…”
Murray Scott
Communications Manager
Optel Group
Christchurch, New Zealand