Tessa Anderson arrived in Marlborough in 1980, left to work in Christchurch in ’82 but came back in 83.

Initially working as a current affairs announcer on Radio, she moved to the Marlborough Express in 1996, where she was given the wine round. Little did she know she would be writing about Marlborough’s wine industry for the next 20 years, as general reporter, then Editor of Winepress, Marlborough’s industry magazine and later as editor of New Zealand Winegrower.

50 years, 50 stories is Tessa’s second book. In 2008 she wrote Jane Hunter’s biography, Creating a Legacy. Over the years Tessa has watched as Marlborough has transformed from a sleepy farming community, where the drink of choice was a Gin and tonic, too a powerhouse in terms of wine production, on a world scale.

Tessa is based in Blenheim with her husband Ross and her two dogs.