Chard Farm celebrates 25 years of fine wines

Chard Farm winemakers (from left) John Wallace, Rob Hay and Duncan Forsyth. Photo by Charmian Smith.
Chard Farm winemakers (from left) John Wallace, Rob Hay and Duncan Forsyth. Photo by Charmian Smith.

In 1986 Rob Hay was the first trained winemaker to come to Central Otago, and for several years made wine for the region's tiny fledgling vineyards.

While looking after the old Chard orchard at the end of a precipitous road above the Kawarau River, he decided it was the warmest site to plant a vineyard and with his family's help he and brother Greg established Chard Farm.

The winery recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with tastings, a party and a public open day.

Although Central Otago is now famous for its pinot noir, back then it wasn't obvious that this was the variety to plant, he said.

''Being realistic, we didn't think it had quite the heat and whatever to pull off Burgundy-style wine, and we were going more Germanic, Alsace, central European.

"We didn't even know we were going to be a pinot noir region, and we were thinking of white. I love the pinot gris and gewurztraminer from this site and the riesling.''

It wasn't an easy start, with inauspicious vintages in 1992 and 1993 when the 1991 eruption of Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines ejected a huge amount of dust into the atmosphere which affected the weather for a couple of years.

If he knew then what he knows now, he probably wouldn't have even attempted to make wine in those years, Mr Hay said.

However, the freezing winter of 1992 enabled them to make a real ice wine, something the conditions have never been cold enough for since.

Ice wine originated in Germany and is still made in Canada, where the winters are cold enough to freeze the grapes on the vine at temperatures below -8degC, concentrating the sweetness and the acidity, as opposed to many so-called ice wines where the water is frozen out of the juice.

It meant getting up in the early hours every day for about a week in midwinter to see if the grapes had frozen and pressing out what juice could be extracted, leaving the ice behind, Mr Hay said.

Only a couple of dozen half-bottles were made, and one was opened at the 25th birthday celebrations.

It was a tawny colour with hints of nuts, an oily texture, but still fresh, sweet but with a searing acidity that made it seem almost dry.

There have been three winemakers at Chard Farm over the 25 years: Rob Hay, then Duncan Forsyth (now at Mount Edward) and from the early 2000s, John Wallace.

A vertical tasting of Chard Farm pinot noir showed the development not only of the vineyards, but also winemaking styles and fashions.

Like many other Gibbston growers, Chard Farm soon planted vineyards in the Cromwell basin which produced riper, more voluptuous fruit.

When they came into production the wines became richer and Chard Farm produced a sweet-fruited, oaky reserve barrel selection pinot noir named Bragato after government viticulturist Romeo Bragato, who in the early 1900s recommended Central Otago as a wine region.

However times and styles changed, and now they look for more complexity and texture, producing stylish single-vineyard wines - an elegant one from the steeply sloping Tiger vineyard at Lowburn from 2002 and another from the Viper vineyard further up the Wanaka road from 2006, as well as the Mata-au, Finla Mor and River Run pinot noirs.

The evolution of Chard Farm rieslings tells a similar story.

The 1990 and 1992 closed with cork were dull, but from 2002, with screw caps and fruit from the Cromwell basin, they showed a lovely richness with hints of buttered toast and marmalade, which develops after four-five years of bottle age.

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