Ata Mara Vineyard & Wine

About

Making great wine begins in the vineyard. The season, the viticulture, and varieties of grapes and a bit of magic all conspire to produce fabulous wine

Story

Fifteen years ago we began the journey to find a nice piece of land to grow a few grapes. Central Otago in the South Island of New Zealand was the ideal place. It had begun to produce one or two nice wines and we have historic links with the region. We found a sheep farm with an old farm house about 11 hectares it was perfect. We began planting that with Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris thinking that the Pinot Noir would be the star of the crop. We had spent a lot of time in France and found a fabulous wine library that had all the specialist books we needed to understand the clones we should plant. David spent months researching and taking advice and when he had decided he got planting. Oh then we purchased the block of land over the road another 16 hectares and began planting that with more Pinot Gris and Riesling and Pinot Noir. The surprise was our first harvest in 2007 both the wines were great but the star was the Pinot Gris an absolute stunner. I did not enter that in any awards but I did the Pinot Noir 2007 it got a Decanter Silver Medal our first vintage. So from sheep paddocks to a Silver medal wine in less than 7 years. The following year I entered the Pinot Gris and it also got a Decanter Silver medal and 89 Robert Parker points. We were pretty pleased with this but really did not realise that once you push the harvest button that's it you begin the longest production journey of your life. We are now into our 8th vintage. We were lucky that one big distributor in London purchased our entire vintage Justerini & Brooks. Then the global crisis hit and we did not much like the wine business not a lot of drinkers were in the mood to drink nice wine and that meant not a lot of distributors and buyers were buying much. Most restaurants were operating out of inventory already purchased. Hard work and lucked shined on us again the Irish came to the rescue and took wine directly out of the vineyard into Dublin for a restaurant group. They remained our biggest customer for several years. Today we produce four varieties of wine and export to several countries with New Zealand being a big local market through the NZ Wine Society www.nzwinesociety.co.nz. But the development does not stop and we are thinking of what the next stage of development needs to be as the journey continues.

Mission

To make wines unique to our place

Products

Pinot Noir
Pinot Gris
Riesling
Gruner Veltliner
Sauvignon Blanc