Carolyn Martin

Carolyn Martin (née Finlayson) is the co-owner and creative director of Creation Wines in the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge Ward of South Africa's Walker Bay Wine Region. The estate has been voted into the top 50 of the World's Best Vineyards three times (2019, 2021 and 2022) and as number 1 in Africa twice (2021 and 2022) 
==Early Life==
Carolyn was born on 7 July 1965 on her grandparents’ wine farm, Hartenberg in the Cape Winelands of South Africa. She is the third generation Finlayson involved in the South African wine industry. Her father, Walter Finlayson , is widely regarded as one of this country’s pioneer winemakers. Carolyn grew up on three wine farms: Hartenberg, Blaauwklippen and Glen Carlou . At the age 5, she hosted her first wine tasting at Hartenberg.
==Education==
Carolyn attended Rhenish Primary School and Rhenish Girls High School. She went on to study at the Michaelis School of Arts in Cape Town, where she completed her thesis on Champagne.
==Career==
In 1987, at the age of 22, Carolyn moved to London, where she opened a design studio, focusing on rebranding through innovation. She returned to her winemaking roots in 1999, when she married the Swiss winemaker, Jean-Claude Martin and settled in the Winelands of Neuchâtel.
In 2002 Carolyn and Jean-Claude bought a small farm in a remote corner of the Hemel-en-Aarde and named it ‘Creation’. There was hardly any infrastructure on the farm and the couple set out to establish the first vineyards, and built a cellar and tasting facilities. The challenge of establishing a new brand was where Carolyn’s considerable marketing expertise came to the fore.
Since 2002 she has established herself as a prominent wine and food pairing expert, with the estate winning a number of awards for innovative wine and food pairing. 
Under Carolyn’s leadership, Creation Wines has also won various accolades for innovation in the wine industry. An example is the ‘Tasting Together, Apart’ virtual campaign launched during the Covid 19 Lockdown period in South Africa. 
Carolyn's name appears on the 2021 WINWSA list of the world's 50 most influential women in wine and spirits. She is a regular speaker at international wine conferences, among the most recent the Areni Global Fine Wine Conference on the Future of Fine Wine (July 2022) and the VitaGLOBAL Summit (November 2022). In August 2022 she did a podcast with Polly Hammond on the Future of Fine Wine. 
She actively contributes to wine education, creating platforms for knowledge sharing and encouraging cooperation with scientists and academia. The latter includes ClimaVin, a global climate change project spearheaded by Stellenbosch University; and the Vititec GEN-Z project, involving experimental plantings of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, to establish the clones and rootstocks best suited to mitigate climate change. 
In January 2023 Carolyn was elected as a VINPRO representative for the Private Sector, with a mandate for innovation on the WOSA board.
As co-owner and creative director of Creation Wines, Carolyn has also played a vital role in the following fields:
* Community Interaction. Carolyn is one of the founders of the Pebbles Hemel-en-Aarde Education Project. In 2019, she was designated a Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International for her sense of the needs of her community.
* Nature Conservation and Sustainability. Creation complies with the sustainability guidelines laid down by the Integrated Production of Wine (IPW) scheme. Every bottle carries the South African Wine and Spirit Board seal for Integrity and Sustainability. The estate received its official WWF Conservation Champion status in May 2022.
* Wine Tourism. Carolyn played an active role in the establishment and launch of the Hermanus Wine Route in 2011. Creation Wines is a regular host of events such as the Cape Epic (2017, 2019, 2023) and the annual FynArts festival since 2011.
* Promotion of Local Arts. Regular curation of art exhibitions such as the ‘Re-turn’ exhibition (2022) by Kathy Robins.
* Wine & Wellness. Transformational and innovative wine and wellness food pairing experiences inspired by Ayurveda principles.
==Personal Life==
Carolyn is married to Jean-Claude Martin, co-owner and cellarmaster of Creation Wines. They have two children, Glenn who is a winemaker and Emma, who is studying international business at Stellenbosch University.
Category:1965 births
Category:Creative directors
Category:Founders