Back in his rugby league days, Peter Mortimer was, by his own admission, a committed beer drinker.
"I was destined to drink the world out of beer," he jokes.
Funny then, that the former Canterbury Bulldogs player is now in the wine business.
His label Mortimers Wines got its start in 1995. By that time he'd retired from his sporting career and was working at the local TV station in Orange, New South Wales, and raising his family of five boys.
"We needed another income to feed those boys and educate them," he explains.
The Mortimer brothers with their kids (1985). Source: Peter Mortimer
So with some advice from a friend, he and his wife decided to give grape growing a try.
"We put six rows in for an experiment and they went really well so I went and got a loan and we put the rest in, put rows 90 in, and the best thing you can do is get a loan because you have to pay it back so you have to be successful!"
Those early days involved a lot of door-knocking, as Peter tried to sell his wine.
Initially, he avoided leveraging his rugby league fame.
The lush vineyards of Mortimer's Wines. Source: Supplied
"I had denied the rugby league past, stupidly, and thought now I’m going to be a serious winemaker, that’s in the past."
But as ex-footy players and fans kept dropping by the vineyard, and word spread in the community, it dawned on him that this could be his niche in the market.
"I realised I needed to tap into that because that was my biggest marketing tool."
So he contacted people he used to play with who were now working in pubs, clubs and restaurants.
"There are a lot of them. So I rang them up [and asked] 'would you put our wine in your club for a couple of months? I’ll take it back if it doesn’t sell.' And we opened up a whole new market for our wines. "
Since then, the business has grown to become Peter's full-time job. He now supplies wines to sporting venues like Parramatta Stadium and Brookvale Oval as well.
"We don't do bottle shops, we don't do chain stores - we do restaurants, we do resorts and we do stadiums and then cellar door and wine club," he explains.
Peter never forgot his NRL roots - he now supplies his vino to stadiums. Source: SBS Small Business Secrets
The business now has a turnover of just under one million dollars - but much of its growth has taken place just in the last two years, since Peter opened an event space for weddings, as well as onsite accommodation.
And now exporting is also on the cards.
"Orange is a small region and we're all scared of export because you look at the Chinese market and they order five or six containers. Well we couldn't fill that." Peter explains.
"So we got a group of interested vignerons and we had a meeting with a freight forwarder and AusTrade ... We've put a plan together, got legal advice, whether were going to form a cooperative or whether we form a company with each of us as directors so we can go as a group confidently to an export market."
Peter Mortimer looks towards the future of his wine business, which involves tapping into the Chinese market. Source: Supplied
Despite the international plans, Peter's clear he doesn’t have any ambitions to become a major international company. His goal is much simpler:
"I want it so whenever anyone thinks of Orange they think of Mortimers Wines".
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