Duncan Forsyth, of Mount Edward, and his team have a quirky sense of humour - catch him in his snakeskin suit at a wine dinner sometime - but his wines are totally serious.
And so is his food.
In the kitchen in Mount Edward's tasting room, hams and other charcuterie items are drying.
They are made from his own pigs that plough and fertilise one of his vineyards in winter.
Shortly after he'd planted his first vineyard, the Morrison on the Pisa flats, he invited Claude Bourguignon, a French expert in soil regeneration who was consulting in Central Otago, to visit the vineyard.
He took him to lunch among the vines and poured him a glass of pinot noir from the vineyard.
A nice varietal wine, Bourguignon said, and Duncan was pleased.
When you pay a consultant, you want them to tell you what you want to hear, he said with a laugh.
However, Bourguignon got into a hole they'd dug, looked at the soil profile and said ''You're going to make great riesling here one day.''
That certainly wasn't what Duncan wanted to hear, as the vineyard was planted in pinot noir.
Nevertheless, it made him look at wine differently, he said.
He started assessing all the vineyard blocks and the soils and looking at the potential rather than what he thought he had and wanted to make.
As a result, he replanted half his Morrison vineyard with whites, including riesling, chardonnay and small amounts of albarino, gruner veltliner and chenin blanc.
He kept the pinot noir on the clay soils and at the Muirkirk vineyard in Felton Rd, Bannockburn.
With vines that are now 10 years old, he feels his wines have gained consistency in the past four or five years.
Duncan loves riesling - he even sells T-shirts with slogans such as ''A momentary lapse of riesling'' - and his are particularly good: floral, silky, rich but with a steely backbone.
In 2012 he also made a late harvest, which was lightly sweet and delicate but with a dry finish that you could happily keep sipping.
Mount Edward chardonnay is stylish with hints of white peach and a linear, dry finish.
There are three pinot noirs: the darker Muirkirk, the charming Morrison and the balanced Mount Edward, which is a blend of the two.
mountedward.co.nz
