Central Otago: Everything to know and wines to try

One of the most southerly wine regions on the planet, New Zealand’s Central Otago is home to dramatic scenery and elegant Pinot Noir. Anne Krebiehl MW takes us on a tour and highlights the producers and wines you need to know...

‘We are the driest, we are the coldest, we are the hottest. There is something striking and extreme about the climate here.’

This is how winemaker Lucie Lawrence describes Central Otago. She is right. Everything about this remote region is intense: its stark beauty of jagged peaks, naked rock, crystalline sky and the turquoise of deep, glacier-fed lakes.

Everything seems heightened, the freshness of the air, the fierceness of the sun, the heart- stopping briskness of the cold water.

Scroll down for Krebiehl’s pick of Central Otago

‘All of those things make our Pinots what they are and work for other varieties, too,’ says Lawrence, who runs Aurum Wines in Lowburn with her husband Brook. It is these extremes that put Central Otago Pinot Noir on the map.Today, however, they are channelled into poise and a stylistic shift is in full swing.The rise of Central Otago as a wine region is as extraordinary as its landscape. Barely 20ha of vineyards in 1990 grew to 280ha by 2000 and to 1,921ha today.Of that total, 1,500ha is Pinot Noir – that’s 79%. ‘I am blown away,’ says Alan Brady of Gibbston Valley Winery, who planted the first commercial vineyard in Gibbston Valley in 1983. ‘We’ve grown a lot in a very short time,’ he adds.

Pinot country

For Brady, Central Otago and Pinot Noir have gone hand in hand. ‘We were very lucky that one of the first varieties we planted experimentally was Pinot Noir. It put its hand up from year one almost. It grew easily and when it started producing fruit, it ripened more consistently than almost anything else. So it’s nothing to do with our wisdom or insight. It was just that Pinot Noir indicated that it found a home here – that was our good fortune,’ he notes. In soils of deep silty loams, alluvial gravels, schist, quartz, sand, clay and loess, cultivating Pinot meant hard work and a steep learning curve.

At times it also demanded nerves of steel, in this semi-continental climate that is a hub for skiing in winter and watersports in summer. High diurnal swings and vintage variation are a given. ‘There have been no two vintages I’ve worked here that have been even remotely similar,’ explains Paul Pujol, winemaker at Prophet’s Rock in Bendigo. ‘With time you get more relaxed about that. When I first got here it snowed in the vineyard as vines were just coming into flowering. But despite cold spells and heatwaves we are able to successfully ripen Pinot in all of these vintages, even with seasons that are dramatically different.’

Central Otago at a glance

Location In the south of New Zealand’s South Island, Central Otago is one of the world’s most southerly wine regions. Its main population hubs are Queenstown, Wanaka and Cromwell

Sub-regions Wanaka, Bannockburn, Gibbston Valley, Alexandra, Bendigo and Cromwell/ Lowburn/Pisa

Coming of age

By the turn of the millennium, Pinot Noir had almost become the subject of Central Otago’s second gold rush. Lots of investment flooded in, then ended in 2008 with the global financial crisis. For Rudi Bauer, viticultural veteran, biodynamic pioneer and winemaker at Quartz Reef in Bendigo, this abrupt halt to plantings represented a great opportunity. ‘It meant that the average age of vineyards finally grew, instead of getting younger and younger. Today people have established vineyards where they get real site expression.’ Looking back he notes a distinct shift in perspective: ‘Now that we have a sense of maturity we no longer need to be loud. Now winemakers are as humble as the viticulturists always were. They listen to the vine.’

The best among them know how to farm in order to channel Central Otago’s undoubted ripeness into brilliance: ‘I grew up here, eating plums, nectarines, peaches, with the juice running down my arms,’ recalls Andrew Donaldson, owner of Akitu in Wanaka. ‘You can’t ignore fruit in Central Otago and you shouldn’t, but you cannot make huge fruit bombs. What you want is subtle, elegant.’

Francis Hutt, winemaker at Carrick Wines in Bannockburn, comments: ‘I am now seeing earlier picking, more finesse. We are no longer trying to prove to the world that our wines can age – we know that they do. So we can relax a little in our extraction. I can see more elegance with less time on skins, less new oak and fewer punch-downs.’

Lawrence of Aurum continues: ‘We are all evolving our style. Our understanding and connection to the land is deepening. There are no massive changes, just gentle evolution.’ Peter Bartle, who makes wines for numerous clients at Central Otago’s custom crush facility VinPro agrees. ‘When it comes to Pinot Noir we are certainly using a lot less new oak and while I’ve always preferred picking early, now that’s the norm,’ he says. But Bartle also calls out on Central Otago’s other grapes: ‘Riesling is just amazing – lots of citrus – and Chardonnay is starting to do very well in Central Otago.’ He also talks about an evolution of dry, textured Pinot Noir rosés.

Site selection

With so much focus on understanding sites, the distinct sub-regionality of Central Otago has also become clear: Gibbston Valley, Bannockburn, Alexandra, Bendigo, Wanaka and Cromwell/Pisa/Lowburn are all distinct in terms of climate, aspect, altitude and exposure. Gibbston Valley along the Kawarau River is the coolest and highest; while Bannockburn, Bendigo and Alexandra are the warmest. Altitude also comes into play, with north- facing hillsides exploited for their sunshine and ventilation.

‘In the early days we thought Central Otago was one region, but as we started seeing fruit from these different vineyards we realised it’s a number of different sub-regions. As a winemaker it’s lovely seeing that, it’s exciting,’ says Grant Taylor of Valli Vineyards, who has made wine in Central Otago since the 1980s and was among the first to draw attention to the sub-regions with his separate bottlings from Bannockburn and Gibbston Valley.

Some winemakers, such as Blair Walter of Felton Road, would like to formalise this sooner rather than later. ‘The winemakers of Bannockburn are certainly interested to pursue an application for a GI [Geographical Indication] for the sub-region. We think we owe it to our customers and businesses to define the sub-regions and where they start and stop,’ Walter explains. ‘I think we are at the appropriate moment now, especially for a sub-region like Bannockburn where the boundaries are relatively easy to define. Some of the other sub-regions are also easy, others will be a bit trickier.’

Contentious as any mapping always is, it surely is just another stage in Central Otago’s development. Taylor sums the situation up: ‘It’s always been changing. I like what’s happening: more people coming here, taking the wine to a wider market. But it’s still an evolving region, which makes it interesting, seeing it grow, develop and change – and that is still going on.’

Cental Otago: six names to know

Rippon

The Mills family, owners of a sheep station on the poor schist soils of Wanaka, were pioneers of Central Otago viticulture. What began with a few rows of vines in 1975, led to the first commercial vintage in 1989. Their 1990 vintage, made by a young Rudi Bauer (now Quartz Reef), lured the Dicey brothers of Ceres Wines and Blair Walter, winemaker at Felton Road, to Central Otago. The vineyards are farmed biodynamically. Older Rippon vintages are spectacular.

Ceres Wines

This is the family project of Matt and James Dicey, who until recently were winemaker and viticulturist, respectively, for Mt Difficulty, where they’d worked since the 1990s. Here they’re able to focus on single sites in Bannockburn and have dialled extraction and oak right back to make expressive, elegant wines.

Lowburn Ferry

This estate has recently come under the ownership of Smith & Sheth, a new project by Kiwi Steve Smith MW, co-founder of Craggy Range, and US billionaire investor Brian Sheth. With proper funding, especially into the vineyards and conversion to biodynamic farming under star viticulturist, Nick Paulin, this is set to blossom.

Akitu

Planted in 2002 at an elevation of 380m in Wanaka, these vineyards are marginal. But you know that all the frost risk is worth it when you taste the wines. After a career in investment management, founder Andrew Donaldson waited 10 years after planting before launching his Akitu label in 2012. ‘I’m from Otago and always needed to return,’ he says. ‘I was just lucky, I guess, that it became one of the most interesting places in the world to grow Pinot, my favourite variety.’

Mount Edward

Winemaker Duncan Forsyth has been pushing boundaries for a while. His flair for Pinot Noir is well known; his mastery of Riesling is evident. He continues to fine-tune both: there is more whole bunch in the Pinot while Riesling gets more skin contact. He’s also now having fun with sulphur-free Gamay, pet-nat Albariño and orange wines. Recently he’s also dabbled with vermouth, based on Riesling and Chenin Blanc, with elderflower as the primary botanical.

Burn Cottage

This biodynamic venture in the Pisa Range, owned by the Sauvage family from Kansas, has Pinot legend Ted Lemon from California as its consultant. First planted in 2003, the wines are now made by Claire Mulholland. ‘The vines are now well established and have been showing wonderful individual block characters over the years,’ she says. She’s excited about a new site, christened Burn Cottage Sauvage Vineyard. ‘It’s a 5.8ha Pinot Noir vineyard along Felton Road. We’ve started biodynamic practices already and envisage the possibility of making a single- vineyard Pinot from there.’

See Krebiehl’s pick of Central Otago

Anne Krebiehl MW is a freelance wine writer, educator, consultant and judge

You might also like:

Top 2014 Central Otago Pinot Noir

New Zealand 2016: Reds to buy, including top Pinot Noir

Beyond Sauvignon: Top New Zealand white wines – Panel tasting results