June 2022
A blog… Made the wine, got the T shirt Felton Road T shirts have become rather a coveted thing over the past two decades. It started in 2001 when I thought I’d create a T shirt for the harvest and winery team to celebrate the vintage. In my past life it was almost standard […]
Autumn 2022
Winemaker’s Comment – Autumn 2022 Putting vintage 2022 safely to barrel should be a thrill. But, despite the excellent quality of picture- perfect fruit, in honesty it was more a deliverance. Never before have I felt so relieved to finish a vintage, even more so than 2020 with the first appearance of the pandemic. We enjoyed […]
Harvest, 2022
Nigel’s Harvest Blog 2022 1st April 2022 Normally at vintage I’d be lobbing in a daily comment. But this isn’t normal. It’s not normal for a country that has escaped Covid throughout most of its ravages to be suddenly engulfed in it. I’ve lived with it for two years but it’s a novelty here, and […]
February 2022
A blog… Bannockburn’s Côte d’Or Burgundy’s famed Côte d’Or translates as the slope of gold. Well Bannockburn, unlike Burgundy, has a genuine golden history, and possibly nowhere in Bannockburn is as famous for gold as Cornish Point. Directly below it on the banks of the Clutha River, the Otago gold rush was started when […]
November 2021
A blog… When we are showing our wine to people, by far the largest amount of time seems to be talking about place. What is this vineyard like? The soils, the aspect, the orientation. That is what people want to know, more than the winemaking, the viticulture, or, indeed, the price. We get so used […]
August 2021
A blog… On remoteness and sustainability Bannockburn is, by almost any definition, very remote. Central Otago is big and thinly populated: 2.4 people per square kilometre. By comparison, leafy Surrey in the UK has 750 per square kilometre. Yorkshire, with its empty moors and dales is still about 450 people /km2. Our nearest city big […]
Spring 2021
Winemaker’s Comment – Spring 2021 It’s been a very long 18 months since Nigel was last at the winery. With the significant milestones of this being our 25th Vintage release; 30 years since Stewart bought the land that would become The Elms Vineyard and Felton Road; and 21 years since Nigel took ownership, I’m handing the […]
June 2021
I remember many years ago, wandering through an amazing and ancient warehouse (indeed it had Roman origins) and enjoying the fabulous cornucopia of wines cluttering its arches. So many wines, more than anybody could ever get to know in a lifetime, and that is so much of the pleasure of a subject that seems to […]
Harvest, 2021
Nigel’s Harvest Blog 2021 3rd May 2021 As the last wines are pressed off to barrel, the winemaking teams don’t get a break, or chance even to catch their breath; there’s the first tranche of the 2020 wines waiting to be bottled. So, getting on for 300 barrels of wine to rack, then combining and […]
Autumn 2021
Winemaker’s Comment – Autumn 2021 The Pinot Noirs of Vintage 2021 are now all safely tucked away in barrel leaving some of the Chardonnays and Rieslings to slowly ferment into the winter months, as is often the case. After very nearly catastrophic frosts from two days of snow in early spring, the rest of […]