Under Waipara Skies
John Saker
Crossing the Waimakariri heading north is a bit like crossing a large European river – it’s another country on the other side. A few kilometres on you can sense a rise in temperature, the sheltering effect of the Teviotdale hills on your right. The general scale of things also changes – the sky seems to grow larger and there’s an edgy grandeur to the sweep of plain that stretches to meet the ranges in the west.
More than 100 years ago, the man who headed New Zealand’s rich list at the time made his fortune here. Manx-born George Henry Moore acquired much of the land between the Waimakariri and Hurunui Rivers, on which he ran a vast sheep farm. In many ways Glenmark Station was another country, with Moore as king. At its heart he built a Gothic mansion, where peacocks strutted beside artificial lakes and fountains.
By the turn of the century Moore’s mansion had burned to the ground and the sun was setting on his empire. Today there are far more vines and olive trees in the district than there ever were sheep in Moore’s flock. Wine is the new wool, prompting British wine scribe Oz Clarke to earmark Waipara as the New Zealand wine region to watch.
Globe-trotting chef and food ambassador Graham Brown (“New Zealand’s most well-respected chef on the international scene” in the view of Cuisine food editor Lauraine Jacobs) goes further.
“In the last five years in particular, the region has taken off, both in wine and boutique food production,” Graham says. “Waipara has always had its own microclimate but the whole area has changed. It’s starting to look like the Sonoma Valley and it can only get better.”
Glenmark Wines’ John McCaskey planted early vines here in 1981. Today there are several dozen small wineries, along with industry giant Pernod Ricard, whose imposing Camshorn Vineyard flanks the main road for more than a kilometre between Amberley and Waipara.
 Waipara accounts for just three per cent of the nation’s vineyard area, but the region has more than its share of hot wines and colourful personalities. The well-travelled, Prague-born Daniel Schuster made his breakthrough Pinot Noirs at Canterbury’s St Helena before establishing Daniel Schuster Wines in Omihi in 1986. He remains one of the region’s linchpins.
Muddy Water (the translation for Waipara), whose winemaker Belinda Gould is as local as the famously fierce nor’west wind, has built itself a strong reputation, as have Waipara Springs, Mount Cass (Chris and Carol Parker’s family-owned winery celebrates 25 years this year) and Mountford.
This is Pinot Noir country. Well, you might think so until you taste the Riesling. Both these cool-climate vines, arguably the most site-expressive of all grapes, excel in the free-draining, stony soils, hot days and cool night con
ditions of Waipara. However, it is Riesling that is being held up as the region’s flagship variety.
In March, Angela Clifford of Greystone Wines and like-minded locals organised a day-long festival devoted solely to Riesling. It could have sold out two times over and Angela hopes to make it an annual event.
Set up by the Donaldson family in 1986, Pegasus Bay is the region’s iconic winery. Its winemaking team and couple, Matt Donaldson and Lynnette Hudson, have been the authors of many a dark, sumptuous Pinot Noir and intense, floral Riesling.
What Pegasus Bay also does well is lunch. The tasting room and adjacent restaurant are decorated with the empty bottles of every great wine that has passed over a Donaldson palate. The restaurant soaks up afternoon sun and spills on to a lawn that slopes away to a Monet-like lily pond.
Head chef Oliver Jackson sources excellent local produce to match the wines. The chunky calamari entrée tastes as it should (of the sea) alongside the Pegasus Bay Sauvignon Sémillon 2007 (I love the way that a dose of Sémillon drops the pitch of Sauvignon Blanc by about an octave).
On S 
Photography by Guy Frederick
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