Even the most ardent lover of New Zealand wine is unlikely to have devoted much of their cellar to North Otago’s Waitaki Valley wines. With less than 50 hectares planted, there simply isn’t all that much to go around.

At first glance Waitaki seems an odd place to grow grapes. It’s an isolated region, straddling the border between Canterbury and Otago, a 3 hour drive west to Queenstown and an hour drive east to Oamaru, the region’s largest town. 

The climate is best described as very cool, windy and dry, with the region receiving only 1820 sunshine hours and 540mm rainfall each year. Gusts of 195km/h have been recorded as winds funnel down the valley from the Southern Alps towards the Pacific Ocean, impacting fruit set, which in turn lowers yields. But if the wind direction changes, sea breezes bring humidity and the threat of diseases such as powdery mildew.

So why then would anyone want to establish vineyards in such a remote and potentially unforgiving area?

Well, the most likely reason is the opportunity to plant on the region’s complex limestone soils. These soils were formed as the seabed was compacted under pressure some 38 million years ago, then raised along a faultline and exposed through tectonic plate activity. 

Limestone is a fairly unusual soil type in New Zealand and attracts passionate advocates in the wine industry. Timbo Deaker, owner of Central Otago-based Viticultura, a company specialising in vineyard management and consultancy, has several clients in Waitaki and knows the area well. And he describes succinctly the connection between limestone and Pinot Noir in particular. In his words, if you are a Pinot Noir nerd, it usually means you’re also a soil nerd. So his view and one that is widely shared, is that Pinot Noir is the grape variety that most expresses the effect of its soils, and that limestone is the ‘holy grail’ on which to grow Pinot. To him, limestone gives the lifted, perfume florals and prettiness of fruit that he loves in Waitaki Pinot Noirs. And I have to agree with him.

North Otago has more in common with North Canterbury than with Central Otago in terms of soils and climate. So much so, Deaker says he’s learnt a lot about how to farm the Waitaki by spending time talking to viticulturists and walking the vineyards in North Canterbury. The cooler conditions around flowering in North Canterbury (which results in a lower fruit set) are also what is experienced in North Otago.

This lower fruit set and the subsequent reduction in yield is indeed one of the challenges afflicting the region. It is always hard to make money when the cost of production is high and volumes are small. 

So that may help explain that whilst Waitaki’s first vineyards were only planted in 2001, in the few decades since then, its progress as a wine region has been a little erratic. Some early pioneers such as John Forrest of Marlborough-based Forrest Estate and Waitaki’s Tatty Bogler, have shown persistence, whilst others became disheartened by the variability of the seasons. For some, the ongoing and significant investment proved too steep. Vineyard owners are regularly courted by players in New Zealand’s hugely successful dairying industry, wishing to convert vineyards back to pasture. And cows are not the only competition. A vineyard on Grant Road has recently been uprooted and replaced by a fledgling truffle business. 

So getting the viticulture right will always be the key challenge in Waitaki. As Deaker noted, it is a region in which you don’t necessarily have much latitude in viticulture practice and it’s best to really ensure all vineyard inputs are done on time. And if you want to have even ripeness uniformity in the vineyard, the quality inputs needed for good Pinot Noir eg. shoot thinning, fruit thinning and harvest, all come with higher labour cost.

But more encouragingly he believes that if you want to have ‘long passage’ in the palate of Pinot Noir you need to have a long slow ripeness, arguably 110 days from 50% flowering to 21.5 brix, to ensure that you have good fruit tannin ripeness. And that’s what Waitaki delivers.

I made my trip to the region in August 2024. I was scheduled to meet up with Grant Taylor, founder and owner of Valli, which produces wines in both Central Otago and Waitaki. So first I called in on Valli’s winery, located in Cromwell, and spent a couple of absorbing hours with winemaker Jen Parr and assistant winemaker Callum Withington, tasting through barrel samples of the 2024 vintage. 2024 Valli Waitaki Chardonnay was impressive but as it hadn’t gone through malo, will wait until in bottle to write a proper IB tasting note. The 2024 Valli Waitaki Pinot Noir showed a lively, almost blue-fruited floral edge but again, will wait until it is in bottle. Valli also make the wine for River T, a small Waitaki producer, and a barrel sample of the 2024 River T Chardonnay looked promising.  

From Cromwell I continued onwards to Waitaki. Turning off State Highway 8, the road towards the largest town Kurow (population 390) travels through magnificent scenery, passing picturesque lakes created as part of a hydro-electric scheme. With towns named Aviemore and Duntroon, together with the scenery, it didn’t much imagination to think I’d been transported to Scotland.  

It would be hard to imagine a more enthusiastic advocate for Waitaki than Grant Taylor. He and his partner Nicole purchased the handsome former Kurow Post Office, built from local Oamaru limestone and have converted it into a stylish wine bar. Having enjoyed a glass or two of 2010 Valli Waitaki Pinot Noir there, followed by a great dinner and overnight stay at the historic local pub, we met up the following morning to drive out to the Valli vineyard on Grant Road. After rain the previous day, the change could not have been more marked. Brilliant sunshine, blue cloudless skies and brisk, snappy albeit cool temperatures were invigorating for the soul. We spent the morning walking the vines and looking at the soils. Valli’s Waitaki vineyard is relatively densely planted by New Zealand standards, 5000 vines/ha, with clones 155, 777, Abel, UCD5 and 114. 

Having established Valli and been responsible for a host of award-winning Pinots made both for Valli and other Central wineries, in 2015 Grant was joined by Oregon-native Jen Parr, herself an award-winning winemaker. After working together for several vintages, Grant knew he’d found a pair of safe hands. This would allow him to move back to Waitaki and leave Jen in charge of making the Valli’s Central Otago single vineyard wines. And moving back wasn’t exactly difficult for him. Taylor was actually born in the Kurow Hospital (Kurow was once a thriving service town) and he joked he may very well end his days there, as the hospital has since been converted into the local retirement home. Indeed Taylor loves the character of Waitaki so much at one point, noting my obvious enjoyment of the environment, he started to point out properties for sale and wondered if we’d consider relocating from Auckland. Given the beauty of the place and the charm of Kurow, it is certainly tempting.

Grant is one of New Zealand’s most experienced winemakers with almost 60 vintages under his belt but shows no sign of slowing down and remains as fascinated by grape growing and winemaking as ever. This year saw the release of Valli’s first traditional method sparkling wine made from Waitaki fruit and aged for 48 months en tirage. Writing in Valli’s newsletter Taylor stated (only slightly tongue in cheek),  “…there really is one place I am familiar with and that is the Waitaki Valley, where there actually is a small vineyard planted with the same percentage of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier as Krug”.


And whilst several of the legacy producers remain committed to Waitaki, it is encouraging to see several new entrants. 

Back in Central Otago, Te Kano Estate, which was established in 2015 by the Lloyd family, was planning to build a new winery. With vineyards in Northburn and Bannockburn, Central seemed the best place. But the opportunity to buy a vineyard in Waitaki along with an already established winemaking facility in Kurow proved irresistible.  Dave Sutton, Te Kano’s winemaker, couldn’t have been more pleased. As we all know, building a new winery requires a great deal of time and investment, so when the opportunity to buy Pasquale’s winery arose, he said it seemed the perfect solution. Rather than start from scratch, spend three years getting resource consent and then begin construction, they could move straight away into a winery with first-rate equipment, plus its own bottling and packaging line. Understandably he was thrilled to be ready and able to essentially control every step of the process from vineyard to bottle. 

So Sutton and his young family moved to Kurow and today all Te Kano’s wines are made at its Waitaki winery. He noted it only takes two hours to get the Central Otago fruit trucked there, so they pick early in the day and it’s in the winery by noon.

When I cheekily said that a couple of other winemakers had described Waitaki Pinot bunches as ‘ugly’, he laughed and said the fruit they get in Central is ‘ridiculously perfect with beautiful, ripe even bunches of grapes – not all fruit looks like that!’. He acknowledged that one of the challenges of Waitaki is the low yield but he was confident that for the patient winemaker, the rewards are there. He said they can pick at lower brix to give medium-bodied Pinots, sitting around 12.5-13.0% alcohol, with beautifully ripe tannins.

Ostler, one of the pioneering Waitaki producers, was established in 1998 by Jim Jerram and his brother-in-law Jeff Sinnott (a highly experienced winemaker). In 2021 they sold to The Lindis Group and the estate was renamed Clos Ostler. The wines are now made by husband and wife team Sarah-Kate and Dan Dineen, owners and winemakers of Wanaka-based Maude Wines. Both are hugely talented, experienced and enjoy the challenge of making Waitaki Pinot Noir.

Sarah-Kate pointed out that Waitaki is on the same latitude as Wanaka but the growing conditions are very different. The Pinot Noir bunches are often ‘more stalk than berry, stringy grapes with more skin than juice’. So, as she wryly observed, this makes for interesting ferments and they have to be sensitive when managing the dense cap of skins and be careful not to make extracted wine. 

But Waitaki doesn’t only make Pinot Noir. There is now an increasing interest it its Chardonnays.

Viticultura recently planted Chardonnay for Clos Ostler and though Deaker likes clones 95 and 548, has chosen clone 107 (known as the Calera clone) for the new vineyard. There isn’t a lot of 107 planted in New Zealand but Deaker thinks it shows good fruit set, so a sound choice for Waitaki. Sarah-Kate is looking forward to working with Clos Ostler’s Chardonnay fruit although she had a few thoughts on the challenges ahead.

In 2024 the grapes were tiny, ‘like little currants’, and she says they are still working out the best approach to Waitaki Chardonnay ie. whether to use new oak, in which case how much, or only older oak. The aim is to build texture without losing that pristine sense of place and whilst full malo is useful to drop acidity, could it lead to a loss in palate quality? 

Unsurprisingly Grant Taylor is also a devotee of Waitaki Chardonnay.  He always bought Valli’s Pinot Noir grapes from a grower but one year he had the chance to buy some Chardonnay too. And he loved it so much he thought he’d better buy his own vineyard which he planted to clone 95.

When I was planning my visit, I contacted Dave Sutton who is also chair of the Waitaki Winegrowers Association and he arranged for a selection of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to be sent to me to taste.  

I was unfamiliar with a couple of producers. I called the owner/winemaker of Run 23, Max Wild, who proved to be thoughtful and considered in his opinion. Wild, an Auckland architect, moved first to Arrowtown in Central Otago and then to Waitaki where he established his own operation, named in honour of the sheep run that once operated there. His small 3-hectare vineyard is close to Lake Waitaki and Wild does everything himself (apart from putting on the nets). His philosophy is to respect above all the pure nature of the Waitaki environment and having visited, I could fully understand this. Wild loves the region’s clarity and brightness of light and wanted to preserve this transparency in his wines. He planted a number of varieties including muscat, gewurztraminer, syrah and viognier but his focus is on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Wild said it was very important to him to be fully organic and Run 23 is now BioGro certified.

Waitaki is New Zealand wine’s smallest GI (registered geographical indicator) and its wines can be difficult to find. But fortune favours the brave. I’ll leave the last word on Waitaki to Timbo Deaker;

“Growing grapes in Waitaki is an adventure sport. There is risk to be sure, but the rewards are great. And there’s definitely fun in the challenge. The fruit may be ugly but the wine is great!”. 

*Due to the erratic nature of recent vintages, I opted to taste the releases sent from each producer rather than hold a ‘latest vintage’ review.  

Waitaki’s Pinot Noir

Waitaki’s Chardonnay