From corporate life to Vigneron ... Adina Vineyard

While living in Europe where he was employed as Worldwide Director of Marketing for Lexmark, Peter O’Meara took the opportunity to pursue one of his lifetime passions and set about learning a great deal about the French wine industry. In 2003 he and his wife Helen purchased a 130 acre vineyard in Lovedale known as Remo’s vineyard and renamed it Adina Vineyard. Today Adina Vineyard is their home with 40 acres of vineyard and over 2000 olive trees.

Far from sitting back and enjoying the quieter life, Peter immediately set about upgrading the facilities by developing a new modern cellar door complex that includes a restaurant and 4 star tourist accommodation. Today the Adina operation has developed into an important and one of the most popular wine and food destinations in Lovedale.

Wine remains Adina’s core business and the vineyard has established a good reputation for producing award winning estate wines of exceptional quality that include Chardonnay, Semillon, Pinot Grigio and Verdelho amongst the whites and Shiraz, Sangiovese, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon amongst the reds. Adina also a delicious Parte Angelica Muscat Non Vintage – a blend of Muscat wines sourced from the Hunter Valley and Rutherglen that reflects the Italian heritage of the vineyard.

In addition to wine and accommodation, Peter has also developed an olive processing facility that handles the production of extra virgin olive oil, table olives and other olive products. Adina also provides harvesting and processing services for other olive producers in the Hunter Valley and in 2012 completed the construction of an enlarged olive mill that expanded the olive processing capacity in the valley several times over. Peter's aim is to turn this new facility into a centre of excellence for olives in the Hunter Valley - providing a focal point for educational and promotional activities to enhance the status of olives in the region.

At Adina, Peter is very much a part of the business and can be found at the cellar door talking about his wine and providore business and promoting unique food products sold under the Hunter Providore label.