We have a new friendly face here at Trentham! A huge welcome to Peter Kirst as Venue General Manager, who has just joined us. Peter brings with him a wealth of experience in the hospitality industry, and we are so excited to have him on-board to guide Trentham into the future. We sat down and asked Peter a few questions to try to get to know him a little bit better....

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what draw you into the wine industry? I was born in Bratislava, capital of Slovakia which shares its borders with Austria and Hungary, on the banks of the famous 'Blue Danube' River right in the middle of Central Europe. Slovakia has a long history of wine making dating back many centuries, including famous Tokaj wine region shared with its southern neighbours, still continues its legacy. I've developed an interest in wines throughout my winemaker friends back home, my hotel management studies, work and travels around the world. At the beginning of my career I worked on luxury cruise-liners in USA (Florida, NY), Bermuda, Caribbean and Mexico. After moving to Australia in 1994, I've discovered more about local wines while working for Hilton Hotel in Melbourne and my passion later continued while I was working as a Food & Beverage Operations Manager at the RACV Club and Balgownie Resort & Vineyard in the Yarra Valley.

In your new role at Trentham Winery, what are you most looking forward to? I'm excited to be part of the family tradition, new projects, recovery from the hardship our business and industry experienced over the past two years and share my knowledge and experience with our team, with the aim to deliver top quality product and service to our members, clients and guests.

Being you’re new to the region, what excites you about the move to Sunraysia? I'm excited about the local Sunraysia produce, learn and discover what the region can offer and experience next year's vintage by getting my 'hands dirty'.

What do you enjoy drinking? Wine with my meal, single malt whisky or plum brandy Slivovitz during my skiing holidays and beer with my mates at the footy game.

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing in your spare time? As an Aussie I follow AFL (Tigers), as a Slovakian, Ice-Hockey and my part-German heritage loves the Football. Also cooking/trying new recipes, baking my own sourdough plus taking care of my V8 Commodore and testing its limits.

Any interesting fact/s we should know about you? I've been training my memory by remembering people's birthdays and my Japanese wife thinks that's kind of weird...