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 Saturday mornings in summer, a roadside lawn at Pegasus Bay gets taken over for the local farmers’ market. It’s a compact and intimate circle, but takes longer to circumnavigate than you might think. Every stall does a good line in conversation.
 Urs and Ursula Fricker, who emigrated from Switzerland in the early 1990s, sell an array of homemade organic bread, much of it made from dinkel flour. It is dense, nutty and designed to nourish. Then there’s Julia O’Sullivan with her homemade icecream – the chocolate crunch is not to be missed. Always experimenting with flavours, Julia is soon to unleash a coconut, marshmallow and Midori ice-cream, using a liqueur that is home-distilled by her son, Jeremy.
Southern humour, gales of it, can always be heard coming from the Murray Downs Meats stall where Sarah Rodie sells her Texel lamb. Texel is a Dutch breed, renowned for its leanness and taste. Sarah’s flock is lovingly grown in what she describes as a “less stress environment” (the only secret she’ll divulge on that score is that her sheep enjoy listening to Val Doonican).
Apart from Riesling, Greystone Wines’ Angela Clifford has another passion – her French sugar figs, a sweet variety with rose-coloured flesh. The fruit from 200 fig trees on her Waipara property is snapped up by local chefs, including Pegasus Bay’s Oliver Jackson, and high-end Christchurch delis, and she also sells them at the farmers’ market in season.
Nathan Trethowen and his mother Vicky grow virtually seedless heritage tomatoes; the olive oil dressings of Iranian Said Shahtahmasebi and his English wife, Bernadette, are a winner; young Thai mother Narissa Grant produces nine varieties of cherries; ex-tea planter in India Tom Porter offers his award-winning Bellbird blended olive oil, Fruttato Verde; Sarah Hughes-Games is the queen of fresh vegetables; and the latest use Jan de Voer heard of for her versatile Great Stuff Mrs Thomas’s Mint Syrup was in a Christchurch bar’s cocktail.
Former international banker Ian Manson and his wife Bev produce their own Olivenz label and also press much of the olive oil in the district. “We didn’t get into olive oil for romantic reasons – it was a business decision,” says Ian. But it’s not just down to good marketing that their award-winning brand is preferred by so many chefs (it’s used in more than 40 restaurants nationwide). With a 2000-tree grove and helped by the olive-friendly heat and free-draining soils, the Mansons know how to make great oil. The Tuscan Frantoio and Leccino olives perform best, Ian says.
Pegasus Bay is not the only Waipara winery offering food. Waipara Springs, which produces outstanding Rieslings and Pinots, serves lunches in a charming outdoor dining area. On a larger scale is The Mud House Winery & Café, whose stone gables looming over State Highway 1 are hard to miss.
 An alternative is to form a group and beat a path to the door of The Cookhouse in Rangiora. Owner Graham Brown himself is a regional speciality: a Cantab who has spent years promoting Cervena around the world. He offers a day of epicurean immersion at The Cookhouse. Mornings are spent in the field, choosing and buying local foods and wines. Then it’s back to The Cookhouse for some hands-on preparation and, finally, dégustation.
Another gastronomic delight awaits at Limestone Hills, the truffière-olive grove-vineyard of author and truffle expert Gareth Renowden and his wife,Camille. One of three local French black truffle producers, with high hopes for an experimental crop of bianchetto (little white) truffles, the couple happily take visitors on truffle hunts during the season ( June and July). This year also saw their first grape harvest – 300 bottles of Pinot Noir are “brewing away in Danny Schuster’s cellars”, says Gareth.
Trish Stanley and her partner Gene Monahan of Hazelwood Hazelnuts welcome visitors to their new tasting room in Amberley to try their hazelnut dukkah (sold nationwide) and butter, among other nutty favourites.
Half an hour from Amberley, the newish Route 72 Café Bar Emporium offers consistent country fare and friendly service, with sweeping views from upstairs to Oxford and the Moeraki Downs.
If the sleepy hamlet of Waipara is the region’s spiritual heart, its commercial hub is Amberley. Amberley’s side streets reveal a fine old Masonic Lodge and a butcher’s premises catering “for all your home kill requirements”.
On Amberley’s quite lively main drag (it does double as State Highway 1) are a couple of excellent restaurants. The award-winning Nor’Wester Café has a good local wine list and serves fine steak. For something quite different, the agreeable little Thai restaurant Karma won’t disappoint.
 Surveying all this, on the road’s western side, is Captain Charles Upham, VC and bar, heroically struck in bronze, one of the district’s most famous sons. If Captain Upham were to come to life again for an hour or two, I suspect he would probably head for the Brew Moon Garden Café and Brewery to the south of Amberley. There he might well order a glass of brewer Kieran McCauley’s excellent Hophead India Pale Ale. Should he then ask after the local farms and their flocks of sheep, who would be brave enough to tell him?
Fact File
Eat At
Nor’Wester Café 95 Main North Rd, Amberley, ph: 03-314 9411, www.norwestercafe.co.nz Excellent service, generous servings and a strong wine list.
 Pegasus Bay Winery Restaurant Stockgrove Rd, Waipara, ph: 03314 6869, www.pegasusbay.com Impeccable ambience. Seriously good wine and food matches.
Route 72 Café Bar Emporium 1697 Cust Rd, Cust, ph: 03-312 5595, www.route72.co.nz Worth a detour west of Rangiora for its hearty, flavoursome fare.
Shop At
Hazelwood Hazelnuts 103A Carters Rd, Amberley, ph: 03-314 2414 Tasting room open Tues-Thurs from 9am-12.30pm.
Pukeko Junction Regional Wine Centre 458 Ashworths Rd (SH1), Leithfield, ph: 03-314 8867 An excellent selection of Waipara wine. The attached café is a popular Saturday brunch haunt.
Stay At
Claremont Country Estate & Nature Reserve Waipara Gorge, ph: 03-314 7559, www.claremont-estate.com A stylish upmarket lodge dating back to 1866 on a private nature-reserve property with a geological secret history in the heart of Waipara wine country.
Dry Paddocks Country Retreat 325 Purchas Rd, ph: 03-314 9639, www.drypaddocks.co.nz Understated luxury in this two-bedroom, contemporary cottage in corrugated iron with all the amenities of a country lodge. Local breakfast provisions include Rachel Scott’s bread. Dinner by arrangement with host Gillian Hyndman, who uses seasonal produce from her bountiful potager garden.
Dunnolly Luxury Vineyard Cottage & Villa 157 Church Rd, ph: 03-314 6940, www.vineyardcottage-dunnolly.com Bed and breakfast in a single-bedroom, self-contained cottage, plus two rooms in the homestead villa with a full bed-and-breakfast service in the library.
Take A Tour
Waipara is the southern apex of the Alpine Pacific Triangle, a 370-kilometre touring circuit that takes in the rugged Kaikoura coast with its whale-watching delights, the alpine spa village of Hanmer Springs, and a lot of beautiful scenery in between. www.alpinepacifictourism.co.nz
Other things to do
Fishing
Many rivers are popular for trout and salmon fishing.
Iron Ridge Quarry 707 Ram Paddock Rd, Waipara Valley, ph: 03-314 9198, www.raymondherber.com Here, in an old limestone quarry, Raymond Herber has his iron sculpture studio. Group visits by appointment.
Karikaas Natural Dairy Products 156 Whiterock Rd, Loburn, Rangiora, ph: 03-312 8708, www.karikaas.co.nz Taste and buy excellent cheeses and butter at the factory shop.
Limestone Hills Ram Paddock Rd, Amberley, ph: 03-314 9921, www.limestonehills.co.nz A chance to join the owners on French black truffle hunts in season. A charming, two-bedroom cottage overlooks the Waipara River Gorge.
Waipara Gardens General Store 63 Glenmark Drive, Waipara Village This local landmark is run by Sarah Hughes-Games, who also sells her quality, fresh vegetables and seedlings here.
Waipara Valley Farmers’ Market Held each Saturday morning (Labour Weekend to April), at Pegasus Bay Winery.
Waipara Wine Trail Most wineries are clustered close to a 10km stretch of SH1. See www.waiparawine.co.nz
Weka Pass Railway ph: 03-962 2999, www.wekapassrailway.co.nz On the first and third Sundays of the month, restored steam locomotive A428 chugs out of the Glenmark station on a return trip to Waikari at the other side of Weka Pass. A great way to see Frog Rock and other limestone formations.
Photography by Guy Frederick
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