Bruce Dukes - Senior Winemaker and Director

Bruce has twenty years of valuable postgraduate industry experience, shared between iconic producers; Niebaum-Coppola Winery in the Napa Valley of California (Assistant Winemaker), Pierro Margaret River Vineyards in Western Australia (Winemaker and General Manager) and currently as the Senior Winemaker (and Director) for Naturaliste Vintners. Bruce has assisted in the establishment of several “five star” producers in the Margaret River area.

His approach to grape growing and winemaking has been shaped by a wide range of high quality industry experience, in conjunction with a degree in Agricultural Science from the University of Western Australia, and a Masters degree in Viticulture and Enology from the University of California, Davis. His deep technical and applied understanding of viticulture, and how viticultural parameters affect wine quality result in very high quality wines and meaningful feed back to vignerons.

Wines made by Bruce over the last 2 years have achieved many medals and a number of trophies. In 2009 three wines were awarded Gold medals at the Decanter World Wine Awards, followed by another two at the 2010 awards, elevating our local wines to the International stage.

Bruce has several publications in fully refereed scientific journals, as well as having authored a chapter in a winemaking text-book. He currently prefers to focus on hands on winemaking and viticultural consulting. The viticultural consulting is biased toward fine-tuning vineyards to ensure that the fruit is farmed to the correct specifications for the intended wine-style.
Amanda Kramer - Winemaker

Amanda started her Winemaking career by completing a Graduate Diploma of Oenology at the University of Adelaide in 1999 after completing a Bachelor of Science degree majoring in microbiology, immunology and physiology. As well as 11 vintages in WA she has participated in five international harvests in the Napa Valley, Portugal, and Italy. Before coming to Naturaliste Vintners she was Senior Winemaker at Wise and Sandstone Wineries in the Margaret River region. In 2001 she won the MRWIA Careers Opportunity Award spending a vintage with Australian Winemaker David Baverstock at Herdade do Esporao winery in Portugal. In 2005 she was awarded the Wine Society’s Australian Young Winemaker of the Year in recognition of her wines produced at Wise Wine.

Amanda has a passion for food and wine and enjoying them with friends. Her approach to winemaking is based on her science background combined with her love for food, flavour and texture. Her objective is to make great wine and have a great time doing it. Her focus and attention to detail in getting the best out of every wine she deals with is second to none.
Remi Guise—Assistant Winemaker

Born in Cape Province South Africa, Remi completed a BSc.(Agric.)(Viticulture & Oenology) in 2006 at the University of Stellenbosch.

At the end of his study he took up a position as Assistant Winemaker at the Meerendal Wine Estate in Durbanville.

Meerendal is a 300 year old estate producing quality wines in one of the cooler climate production areas in South Africa.

Remi joined Naturaliste Vintners as a casual cellar hand in 2008 and was promoted to Red Wine Specialist in 2009. He was appointed Assistant Winemaker in recognition for the outstanding work he completed over the 2009 vintage.

Remi is passionate about new World winemaking and wines; their ability to equal and surpass their Old World counterparts in both quality and integrity and to have an identity which is an expression of the new world and all it has to offer.