After spending five years turning a former Kurow fruit orchard into a vineyard and winery, Murray Turner has moved on to fresh fields.
Mr Turner, whose family bought land just east of Kurow about 25 years ago and established River T orchards, started a new job yesterday as operations manager for the Upper Waitaki Community Irrigation Company.
In 2007, he and wife Diana sold the orchard and its fruit packing-retail outlet building to Antonio Pasquale, who had established a vineyard in the Hakataramea Valley.
Mr Turner was appointed general manager for Kurow Estate Ltd and oversaw turning the orchard into a 16ha vineyard and redeveloping the packing-retail shed into a winery, which processes Kurow Estate and Pasquale wines.
Mr Turner saw his new role with the irrigation company as a challenging one, not just managing the scheme which takes water from just above the Waitaki dam and distributes it over 1700ha as far east as the Duntroon area.
It would be an expanded role, from ensuring compliance with resource consents through to efficient water use, upgrading the scheme and possibly expansion.
"It's a new challenge and a change in direction, but one I am looking forward to," he said.
At the same time he was proud of what had been achieved with the development of Kurow Estate.
