The roots go deep at Wānaka vineyard

Rippon winemaker Nick Mills looks across his family vineyard on the western flank of the Upper Clutha Basin, overlooking Lake Wānaka.

He says the land has its own spirit that he feels strongly.

Asked by Country Life to elaborate, he puts it like this:

"This land is about belonging, connections, love, family, team, voice, being blessed to be a place that grows grapes... that can talk with warmth and accuracy to this beautiful place."

The Rippon vineyard is, Nick says, his family's tūrangawaewae.

Nick Mills' family have been farming this land for 110 years.

In 1982, his parents Rolfe and Lois planted their first block of commercial grapevines. Today their children care for the property, farming the land biodynamically and growing and producing wine.

"We are relative newcomers to the land, though. Māori used to come up from the east coast for hunting and fishing, as well as gathering and a place of education; it was a place where you could bring up your kids and teach them about all of those things. Survival, essentially, in this environment."

Family legend has it that Rolfe's father had the idea to plant grapes on the family farm after being in Europe during WWII.

"He came back from serving in submarines and went via Portugal where he saw the schist soil supporting grape growing for port. It seemed to have sparked an interest in viticulture way back then."

Recently, the family traced their interest in winemaking back even further.

It seems that in 1895, Rolfe's grandfather Percy Sargood attended a speech given by Italian viticulturist Romeo Bragato in Dunedin about how ideal Central Otago was for growing grapes.

"He wrote to his father talking of the potential of this place for viticulture."

Whatever the spark, Nick's father Rolfe had decided by the 1970s that the land was good for grapes - and goats.

Since the first experimental vines were planted in 1974, the family have gone from experimental pioneers to famous winemakers, known especially for their Pinot Noir.

At the time, though, "we were kind of the weirdos", Nick says.

"There was our father in his mid-50s, silver hair, with a young wife and a young family. We had Angora goats in a basin that was merino and a few cattle here and there; mostly rabbits, really.

"I think we were looked at as [being] a bit odd [due to] the Angora goats. Then the viticulture, that was really, really odd.

"But the vines made sense to [Rolfe]. The rest is history."

Today, Rippon Vineyard and the surrounding land is farmed biodynamically, with composting at the very centre of the operation to enrich the soil and a sense that the land has an individual character and spirit.

"You have to walk past it every day," says Nick.

Into the compost goes everything from cuttings and grass to the skins of the grapes.

The compost is replenishing the land which Nick thinks has its own character and, like the Whanganui River, its own identity.

Decision-making at Rippon involves thinking of the land as a partner in the conversation, he says.

Does Nick have a favourite wine?

He does, and mentions a few, but says for him the joy is not with the final wine itself but in the process of working with the land to create something unique.