Our Winemaker
Mark Hunter’s journey from vineyard work to the Sanguine winemaking style.
The legacy site frames Mark as both a natural creative force and a technically grounded winemaker, shaped by vineyard work, early mentoring, and the transition to estate-led production in Heathcote.
Winemaking lens
Vineyard-first, technically grounded, and clearly Heathcote-specific.
The page works best when it positions Mark as both practitioner and translator: someone shaping fruit, style, and hospitality into a public expression of the estate.
Role in the public story
Guests should understand who is actually making the wines they are tasting.
That direct relationship between maker, vineyard, and cellar door is one of the strongest differences between the replacement site and a generic ecommerce storefront.
Early involvement
From viticulture into winemaking
Mark began with the business in the vineyard as viticulturist before moving deeper into winemaking, bringing both practical vineyard knowledge and a clear creative instinct to the wines.
For the 2000 and 2002 vintages, he understudied Matt Hunter at Langanook in Sutton Grange, gaining the by-the-book analytical foundation that shaped his early development.
Estate transition
Building the winery and moving to 100% estate production
After several successful vintages and the end of a grape supply contract to Southcorp, the family decided to build a winery on the Heathcote estate and produce wine from the full grape output on-site.
That shifted the operation from a few hundred cases to around 10,000 cases in a single year and brought in further Heathcote winemaking support through Peter Dredge while the winery was being built and refined.
Today
A Heathcote-specific point of view
Mark remains central to both vineyard and winemaking decisions and sits at the intersection of terroir, fruit, and hospitality that the public site associates with Sanguine.