Winemaker

Mattheu Shiels

Discipline: Winemaker
Venue: Last Hope Distillery · Distillery

Portrait of Mattheu Shiels

i. Biography

Co-ownership at Last Hope Distillery places Mattheu Shiels inside the day-to-day work of building and maintaining a distillery’s identity. It is the role that combines oversight with participation: decisions, refinements, and the steady labor of keeping a young business moving forward. In distilling, co-owner is not just a title on a page; in Shiels’ case, it reads as active involvement in the structure, pace, and character of the place.

Where They Are Now

Last Hope Distillery is the ground Shiels helped establish, and the work now sits in the practical business of shaping what the distillery is and how it operates. That kind of role asks for patience, commitment, and comfort with building by doing. For Shiels, the path into the distillery did not start with a finished map; it moved forward through experience, with the venture taking form alongside the people making it. The result is an enterprise still being defined in real time, with Shiels positioned inside that process.

In Their Words The line is plain, and that is what gives it weight. It names the scale of the leap without dressing it up: a distillery idea in Puerto Natales, and no prior experience to lean on. In trade terms, that means learning the work from the ground up rather than inheriting a ready-made model. The fact that Mattheu Shiels now co-owns Last Hope Distillery gives that statement its context: the early lack of experience became part of the making.

Career - Co-owner, Last Hope Distillery

FAQ What is Mattheu Shiels's nationality? Australian. What is Mattheu Shiels's current role? Mattheu Shiels is a winemaker at Last Hope Distillery in Puerto Natales.