Vintners represents a portfolio of carefully selected wine brands, from around the world, on an exclusive basis for the New Zealand market.

What We Do

We import wine from established producers in France, Spain, Italy, Argentina and Australia as well as representing fine wine estates from New Zealand. Our team has a wealth of industry experience, including brand marketing, with specific channel management expertise covering on-license trade, retail and grocery sectors.

The company prides itself on having strong customer relationships across all sales channels and delivers a high degree of wine knowledge in support of the wineries we represent. Our sales team has energy, enthusiasm and a passion for what we do, and work hard to deliver professional service in a friendly and courteous manner.

Wine serious but not wine snobs.

Where We Began

Although Vintners was incorporated in 2001, its origins date back to 1980 when a group of Auckland businessmen, decrying the lack of quality imported wine to drink, decided to form a consortium to source their own wine.

Two of the members were the late Mate Brajkovich, founder of Kumeu River Wines and Ross Woodlley, founding partner in accounting firm Brown Woolley Graham which has become Grant Thornton NZ. A company was formed to market the wines locally to defray some of the import costs. This company was Kitchener Wines. Kitchener Wines quickly established itself as a successful distributor of both local and imported wines.

In 1998 a new company, Concerto Merchants Limited, was formed to develop the associated wine interests of Kitchener Wines and those of Perfect Expresso, New Zealand agents for Illy Coffee. This company continued to achieve growth in the New Zealand market until April 2001 when it was decided to form Vintners New Zealand Limited and focus energies on the core business of wine distribution and brand building. Vintners New Zealand was formed by business partners Philip Shepherd and Mark Young, both of whom had considerable experience in sales, marketing and distribution of premium wine brands in the New Zealand market. Today Vintners continues to be led by Mark Young.