Orderly and methodical marketing was his trademark
The death at 65 after a short illness of vineyard proprietor Richard Riddiford will recall for many his remarkable organisational feat in instituting the Wellington region’s main food and wine exposition, Toast Martinborough. This required a two phase management. The first in bonding together the Martinborough district’s numerous and by definition, individualistic vineyards. The second in the precision marketing so that the event was perceived as a gastronomic one.
He was successful in both these steps which he capped by ensuring that the annual event was always sold as if tickets were in extreme shortage. This technique of premium presentation gave the event the type of aura that New Zealanders usually associate with international festivals of this type.
His stern even forbidding demeanour was of much service in all this. His friend Auberon Waugh the wine writer and social critique present at the inaugural ceremonies attendant upon the launch of Toast Martinborough dubbed him Rochester after the smouldering Bronte anti-hero.
Richard Daniel Riddiford was born into a family some might say dynasty that started with the advent of the New Zealand Company. His great grandfather was the storied “King” Riddiford who consolidated the family’s holdings in South Wairarapa and then extended them into the Central Districts.
Richard Riddiford honed his methodical and orderly marketing skills while working his way through the ranks of Thos Borthwick then responsible for 30 percent of all New Zealand’s meat exports.He returned to New Zealand to organise the Palliser Estate wine company of Martinborough of which he became the managing director.
He remained in this role until just a few months prior to his death when in his typically measured way he transferred all the reins to a much younger management group.
He remained always conscious of what he saw as an inherited obligation to his community. He will be remembered for the generous way in which he freely placed at the disposal of others his natural dignity in presiding over rites of passage and just as willingly his comprehensive commercial organisational talents.
From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk Friday 5 August 2016
