Nicholas Casswell Bulleid M.W., M.Sc., B.Sc. (Hons)
Nick is an independent wine industry consultant, providing assistance to companies in four states with winemaking, valuation, blending, marketing and vineyard development, plus general advice on wine industry matters. He also works with regional vigneron and winemaker associations, conducting tastings to benchmark their wines for quality and style against successful market competitors. Additionally, he is often called on to resolve differences of opinion between contract winemakers and their clients and has been engaged as expert witness in several legal cases involving wine quality, value and technical issues, such as closures.
He is currently a Visiting Professor at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, teaching wine evaluation in the School of Wine and Food Sciences. He also writes for the Australia and New Zealand Wine Industry Journal, Wine Business Magazine and for consumers in Australian Gourmet Traveller WINE magazine and Australian Wine Selector. He is currently editing a textbook on practical winemaking, to be published by Wine Publishers, Adelaide, in 2007.
Previously, he spent eight years in the Marketing Department of Southcorp Wines and prior to that was Wine Manager for Cellarmaster Wines Pty Ltd.
He has judged at the Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart wine shows, the Sydney International Wine Competition and many regional shows, and was chairman of the Canberra Regional Wine Show for five years. He has also judged at the Royal Easter Wine Show and the Air New Zealand Wine Awards in Auckland, New Zealand, the Hawke’s Bay Wine Awards, Liquorland Top 100 in Wellington and the International Wine Challenge in London. From 2001 to 2003 he was chairman of judges of the New South Wales Wine Awards.
Nick became the third Master of Wine in Australia, passing the examination in 1992.
He is a past committee member of the Australian Society for Viticulture and Oenology and was convenor of its seminars on Emerging White Varieties and the Wine Show System. He remains the Chair of the ASVO’s Wine Show Committee, which is seeking a national approach to improving wine shows. Nick and members of his Committee delivered their recommendations on wine show management at the 2004 Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference in Melbourne.
In 2004 he was made a life member of the Wine Press Club of New South Wales, having been President of the Club during 1985/6 and 1986/7.
Nick is a director and shareholder of Brokenwood Wines Pty Ltd and for five vintages shared the winemaking duties. He currently selects wines for a virtual retailer BackVintage Wines which, within two years, has achieved considerable commercial success.
He believes he has too many interests for his or their own good, including music – in particular singing - trout fishing, wood-working, various sports, gardening and cooking.
He lives with his wife Susan and two young sons in Canberra, travelling to the chilly Southern Tablelands of New South Wales where he manages his own Hatherleigh vineyard and tries to coax pinot noir to ripeness.