Lisa McGuigan is the fourth generation of one of the Hunter Valley's most famous winemaking families. While born into a wine family, Lisa decided to explore other avenues and made a career in hospitality. For 10 years, Lisa worked in hotel management and restaurants across Australia, trained as a chef and in hotel management.
It wasn't until 1996 that Lisa ventured back to the Hunter Valley to develop her own take on the traditional cellar door. From this and her hospitality experience, Lisa identified a niche for her own brand of a boutique, fashionable wine brand and she joined her forebears in the wine industry.
Using limited resources working out of her garage in Sydney and a corner of the McGuigan winery, Hermitage Road was born, named after the Pokolbin Road that runs past several McGuigan vineyards. The brand grew through her special brand of marketing – personal and very hands on, however in 1998, just as Hermitage Road was making inroads, the French appellation mounted a campaign to prevent the use of the name “Hermitage”. The new brand hit its first obstacle, but undeterred, Lisa found a new name – Tempus Two (latin for ‘second time’).