9 minute read
TE KONO WINERY PROFILE
Love for the land and a love for wine
An impressive new Central Otago vineyard is starting to show its potential, and its owners’ care for the land. Charmian Smith visits Te Kano’s Northburn vineyard and its tasting room on Felton Rd.
In spring the ancient kowhai tree’s splash of golden flowers stands like a beacon on the rugged hillside above Northburn, across Lake Dunstan from Cromwell in Central Otago.
Over the next few years its offspring will thread ribbons of gold throughout the rocky mounds and gullies dotted through the blocks of vines in the striking Te Kano vineyard below.
The golden kowhai flowers that attract tui and bellbirds also inspired the wine labels, according to California-born Rhonda Lloyd, who, with her New Zealand husband Keith, has developed the vineyard.
Living in London, the Lloyds fell in love with Central Otago on one of their many visits home, and in 2015 they bought the Eliza vineyard on Felton Rd, Bannockburn.
— Rhonda Lloyd
Dave Sutton, Te Kano’s winemaker hard at work in the winery.
That whetted their appetite and soon they also acquired the Jerome vineyard on the Cairnmuir side of Bannockburn.
Then, seven years ago they found, and were entranced by the steep Northburn hillside.
“I don’t know what it was about Northburn but it just felt so special to me and we walked on that land and said ‘that’s it’. We wanted to do something with Northburn. It just felt like it had been kind of - I guess it had been a sheep station for many a decade and we thought this could be a very special place.” Rhonda said.
With 60ha to bring into production, their operation catapulted to a new level. Dave Sutton, who had been making their wine at Vinpro became their first employee, building a team and developing the new vineyard which now sports neat green rows of vines on the dry slopes and small patches of darker native plantings in the rocky gullies.
“This isn’t so much a commercial operation for us. It’s really a loved family project,” Rhonda explained.
“We hope to give it even more life and support so it ends up even stronger than it was - a beautiful piece of land to begin with - to nourish it and look after it and really give back to the land.”
Just as important as the vines is the regeneration of native plantings. Jean Griersons, landscape and propagation coordinator, collects seeds of local native plants, propagates them in a nursery and the vineyard team plant them in the rocky interstices and hollows, some of which hold historic tailings and water races left by 19th century goldminers.
“The whole team chips in to plant natives in winter. There’s a lot of land there and a lot of work to do. That part we probably didn’t appreciate - it’s never ending,” Rhonda said with a laugh.
Besides their shared passion for the land, the Lloyds have the financial and marketing skills to make Te Kano financially sustainable to fund the regeneration work that will bring renewed life to the land, she said.
They are also wine enthusiasts from way back. When they were young and still struggling to make it, they’d save their pennies for special bottles, she said.
They also took WSET (Wine and Spirit Education Trust) courses although Rhonda had to stop when she became pregnant with her first child. Now she’s working on the diploma.
She likes to share beautiful things with people and hope eventually to invite them to a facility at Northburn. Meanwhile people can visit Te Kano’s tasting room at the rear of their Eliza vineyard in Felton Rd. It’s cantilevered over the terraces that step far down to the Kawarau arm of Lake Dunstan offering a stunning view otherwise hidden from the public.
“We see it as something for the long term, and hope that our daughters will be involved with it, but we like to think of it as something we want for the long run and to go into a structure that keeps the land going.”
Pinot noir, of course, is Central Otago’s flagship, but the Lloyds have also planted a lot of chardonnay. They couldn’t understand why there was so little in the region, with pinot gris being the most popular white. They’d inherited pinot gris in their older vineyards so decided to concentrate on chardonnay as their main white.
Rhonda Lloyd, the passion behind the Te Kano family project.
“Being an outsider, I thought this is the same latitude as Burgundy but south, and Burgundy has the finest chardonnay in the world. I thought why aren’t we doing the same thing. It just seemed crazy. This could be beautiful cool climate chardonnay.”
Impressed with some of the small amounts fine chardonnay made in the region, particularly from Felton Road and Domain Rewa, they took the opportunity to plant a significant amount in the new vineyard, Rhonda said.
They were planning a winery for the Northburn site, when Dave visited the former Kurow winery in the Waitaki Valley in North Otago, a couple of hours drive through the Lindis Pass.
“We were looking at purchasing their equipment because they had a really nice winery - it has its own bottling line which has hardly been used - a lot of their equipment had never been used, and basically it was the same configuration as we were going to build.” he said.
“I stepped into that space and it was like, this is actually the winery I was going to spend three years building. So we bought it. The timing couldn’t have been better. Immediately after that we went into the covid lockdown and we’d have been mired in three years of construction and blowouts and escalation costs. It’s given us a lot more freedom over the last three years to make our own wines and to have full control of the winemaking,” he said.
Assistant winemaker Christine Nichelsen lives near the winery and the neglected vineyard alongside is being brought back into production.
Transporting the harvested grapes over the hill from Central to North Otago is simply a matter of picking early in the morning and sending them while it’s still cool, he said.
Te Kano produces three levels of wine: the vibrant Kin chardonnay and pinot noir; the white label Life, blended from their vineyards which Dave describes as a reflection of the season; and the black label reserve, Land, from single blocks.
Each vineyard has its own characteristics which contributes to the distinctiveness of the wine. The two Bannockburn vineyards are certified organic, while Northburn is in transition and Waitaki will eventually also be managed organically.
Jerome in Cairnmuir is northfacing, hot with dry sand soils and the vines become dehydrated with tiny bunches and ripe, tropical flavours which gives an oily rich, honey character. Pinot noir is more defined, angular, tannic and challenging, he says.
Eliza in Felton Rd is on clay and silt, easier growing conditions which gives more depth and rounded, voluptuous wines.
Northburn is on schist and at a higher altitude so its wines are fresher with a hint of minerality, nashi pear rather than lychee, he said.
“The Waitaki vineyard has a totally different profile, very floral, almost chalky, with an exotic note of green ginger. Waitaki captures aromatics so well - that’s one thing I really love,” he said.
Grapes from each vineyard are fermented separately which gives him many different blending components which he finds exiting.
Tasting Te Kano wines, I was struck by their structure and texture, from the simpler, enjoyable Kin wines through the stylish Life wines to the complex, individual Land wines.
Dave explains that he leaves the wines on their lees (dead yeast particles) to enhance their structure, keep them alive longer, and avoid the need to add sulphur.
“The texture should feel good in your mouth. Really great wines have power, concentration, and are light on their feet - that’s the aim,” he says.
Te Kano produces several shades of pinot noir, a fragrant, dry white blanc de noir and a pale pink, fresh, textural, dry rosé, and, of course, red wine.
Kin pinot noir was cheerful and fragrant, suggesting strawberries and cherries. Life 2019, at four years old, was still youthful, spicy with wild herbs, sour cherry, hints of mineral like Te Kano’s other wines, showing complexity and finesse. Several of their reserve red pinots were sold out so unfortunately I couldn’t taste them.
Te Kano also grows another red, cabernet franc, on a small, steep, hot block on the Northburn vineyard. Dave makes it in a fresher style inspired by cabernet francs from the Loire in France rather than the heavier Bordeaux style favoured by some of the Hawkes Bay producers. However it sells out quickly after its January release and I wasn’t able to taste it either.
“It’s a successful wine for us - there are lots of pre-orders,” he said.
Being a new producer, Te Kano sometimes struggles to meet demand for its wines but as production increases, in future they hope to be able to hold them before release until they have had time to mellow.
Te Kano’s pinot gris was a revelation to someone who is rarely charmed by this variety. I loved its fragrance, complexity and texture, rich and unctuous with a hint of honey and savoury minerality .
Another revelation was the floral, spicy sauvignon blanc hinting of elderflower from the Northburn vineyard. Mostly barrel fermented, it’s delicious and quite different from the Marlborough style.
An aerial view of the impressive Northburn vineyard, vines with rocky gullies planted with native plants.
The ancient kowhai tree stands guard above the Northburn vineyard overlooking Lake Dunstan.
— Dave Sutton
Flourishing grapevines are a contrast to the original barren, rocky hillsides.
Te Kano Kin Chardonnay 2020, mostly from Northburn, is generous, hinting of nuts, vanilla and spice.
Although more youthful, Te Kano Life Chardonnay 2021 has more structure, fragrant with ripe stone fruit, fresher and more complex and a lingering aftertaste.
“Our main problem is making enough of this wine” Dave said with a laugh.
Two black label Land chardonnays, each from three selected barrels from a single site and clone, demonstrated the different character of each vineyard.
The Land Northburn Chardonnay 2020 was wonderfully textural, spicy with smoky oak, concentrated, but with a taut freshness and mineral undertone. A joyful wine from young vines, it opens in the glass and will amply repay several more years bottle age.
Land Bannockburn Chardonnay 2020 from 20-year old vines on the hot, dry Jerome vineyard in Cairnmuir was textural, concentrated, complex, yet with a lovely freshness. A powerhouse that begs for time in the cellar to reach its potential.
They confirmed to me that given care and dedication, chardonnay has the potential to be one of the great wines of Central Otago. tekanoestate.com
