The Vineyard

The 47 hectare vineyard consists of three main areas. The lower portion of 8.5 hectares has about 800mm of sandy silt on deep, fine, alluvial gravel. The 'Main block', is a 25.5 hectare terrace of finely fractured rock and gravel, overlaid by 300-400mm of very fine wind deposited silt. The 13 hectare 'hill blocks' have the same layer of the wind deposited silt, this time over fractured schist and decaying rock, which was the parent material of the main terrace.

Vines are 'Vertical Shoot Position' planted at 2,500 or 3,000 per hectare with an average of 15 shoots per metre and irrigation is maintained to keep the vines just above their stress point.

All three blocks have excellent drainage and just enough soil to maintain a grapevine with a modest crop load. We believe all three blocks will produce concentrated and tasty wine-grapes because of the soil, vine, and crop balance.

The plantings are 70% Pinot Noir with Pinot Gris and Chardonnay sharing the balance; we also have a small area of recent Riesling plantings.

The Winery

Akarua's modern winery facility is designed and built to handle 500 tonne with all the necessary equipment to ensure a no-compromise approach to winemaking. Construction was completed in 1999 alongside its Bannockburn Heights vineyard blocks on Cairnmuir Road. It is a multi-purpose complex that also incorporates a busy Cellar Door, Café and Bar.

The original concept acknowledged those special requirements that the Pinot Noir grapes demand of winemakers. It is equipped with a range of open-top and closed stainless steel fermenters that have been specially tailored to ensure optimum extraction of grape characters. A well resourced engineering infrastructure also provides the winemaking team with an ability to maintain control on vessel and environmental conditions at all times of the year. At this time about half of the winery’s floor-space is occupied with process equipment and this will increase aligned to anticipated increases in vineyard productivity.

The barrel room is spacious and temperature-controlled to reflect the conditions most suited to our wines. In addition, we take special care in ensuring that humidity is maintained appropriately, especially with the dry conditions that tend to predominate in Central Otago.

One other unique aspect that Akarua has available is its own purpose-built bottling line, one of only a few such facilities in Central Otago. This gives us the flexibility to make our own decisions about optimum bottling and labelling times for the wine.

Complementing the modern and traditional processing area we also have a well-equipped laboratory that provides for a range of quality assurance tests to be conducted on-site.