Description
About Rimu Grove Wines
We are very fond of our winery. It may look like a glorified garage, but to us its home and we love it. It’s small, it’s cosy, it’s got all our favourite toys inside and it’s equipped with a monster subwoofer which has enough kick that we’ve actually tried to use it to stir the wine in the barrels; we’re happy.
Our approach is a combination of absurdly labour intensive, hands-on wine making with a “non-interference” ethic. This may sound oxymoronic, but it does actually make sense. With an operation as small ours, we can implement painstaking quality control at Harvest, resulting in absolutely clean fruit. Then, with our tiny, half-ton microvin fermenters and constant vigilance we are able to step back and let the wine evolve on its own, without our interference. “Non-interference winemaking” is not a euphemism for being lax, it’s an ethos and an aesthetic, a tightrope balancing act which when executed correctly allows the wine to develop the unique identity that we constantly strive for.
With a philosophy of traditional winemaking, an understanding of the molecular science behind wine, a hands-on approach and good old nerves-of-steel tempered over years of winemaking experience, owner and winemaker Patrick Stowe is the man at the helm and the captain of our little crew of piratical winemakers.
The Rimu Grove Home Vineyard was planted in 1995 and comprises 7 hectares of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris vines laid out on the gentle north facing slope of the Bronte Peninsula overlooking the Waimea Inlet. Nelson has New Zealand’s highest sunshine hours and this fact, coupled with our temperate maritime microclimate and the ancient glacial gravels of the Moutere Clays, all contribute to making this the beloved home of our 20,000 precious vines.
Our vineyard is meticulously hand-maintained and our vines are pampered and spoilt in royal fashion. We prune back to either a single or double cane in the winter, shoot-thin in the spring, crop-thin and leaf pluck by hand in January, we net the vineyard in February and harvest by hand usually around about early April each year.
We love and respect our vines and the gorgeous grapes they produce for us, but there is also a whole lot of hard work involved. Our loyal locals who come back year after year, along with a constant stream of young travellers passing through the beautiful Nelson region provide us with an ever changing kaleidoscope of faces in our seasonal crews out on the vineyard. It’s their energy, humour and hard work that make it all possible. Handball tournaments down at the winery, water gun fights in the vineyard and the Nelson region’s spectacular microbreweries all help us stay focused and true to our vineyard philosophy – happy workers make happy wine.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.