Former model and television presenter Sierra Reed discovered her love of winemaking in New Zealand and indulges her passion for riesling in the Waitaki Valley.
She tells Rebecca Fox about her determination to see Waitaki Valley riesling survive and be appreciated.
If Sierra Reed could only make one wine variety for the rest of her life it would be riesling.
‘‘I’m obsessed with riesling.’’
So much so, she spent thousands of dollars on grapes from vineyards she had never been to before — all based on a couple of blind tastings of riesling and pinot gris in Wellington.
‘‘I could taste incredible energy of acid. And that's really my hyper focus in riesling.’’
It turned out the wines were from the Waitaki Valley, a region American-born and raised Reed had never heard of before. While she had lived in New Zealand working as a model and television presenter, even travelling the country for a travel show and filming winemakers, she had never visited Dunedin or the Waitaki.
‘‘I said, I have to make wine there. I've never been there, but it's kind of like this is how I work. You know, there's universal cues. I really listen to them.’’
In her younger days, listening to those universal cues saw her take part in television show Survivor and fall in love with winemaking while interviewing some of New Zealand’s top wine families from the Family of 12 including those from Pegasus Bay, Felton Road and Kumeu River for television.
‘‘It kind of made me change my whole entire career in 2011 and that's what kicked it off.’’
Reed, 40, who has half a fashion degree and no agricultural background to speak of, just felt very strongly about the need to investigate winemaking further.
‘‘It was this sense of deep jealousy for what they were doing. Out in the mud, driving tractors, that's not what you do in fashion. I modelled around the world and lived in Milan. I think it just was so overpowering. My brain just always said, if you want it bad, you can have it, you've got to work your butt off for it. And I did, and I still do.’’
To learn more she became a nomad travelling the world to learn about making wine from Paso Robles (Hearst Ranch Winery), the Yarra Valley (Domain Chandon), the Napa Valley (Piña), the Barossa Valley (Head Wines), Mornington Peninsula (Kooyong), Beaujolais, France (Domain du Vissoux), the Grampians (Mount Langi Ghiran), the Napa Valley (Hunnicutt Winery), Barolo, Italy (E. Pira & Figli – Chiara Boschis), Geelong (Lethbridge Wines), Rheingau, Germany (Robert Weil) and Pfalz, Germany (Kohler Rupreckt), and doing a vintage at Rippon in Central Otago.
It was while working in Australia that she met her now husband and settled there, starting her own brand Reed Wines in 2015 making single vineyard wines such as semillon, cinsault, grenache and tempranillo and of course riesling from grapes across Victoria and South Australia. She then took on the 1.5ha Spring Creek vineyard in Jan Juc. Its 38-year-old vines grow atop fossilised limestone in the coastal climate.
But she felt something was missing - a connection to New Zealand.
‘‘I needed to go back to New Zealand and somehow be a part of the wine community there. Because it was obviously the place that awakened my craft inside me.’’
Not being interested in making chardonnay or pinot noir, she tried to think of a way she could make that connection. She ended up exporting her wines to New Zealand which enabled her to travel here each year to do trade work.
It was on one of these visits she had her first taste of riesling from the Waitaki. It was the following year, after tasting the region’s wines again and flying to Queenstown, it was suggested she talk to Valli winemaker Grant Taylor who has vineyards in the Waitaki.
‘‘So I sat with Grant. And he, about in the first 10 minutes, asked me if I'm a doer or a talker. I said both. And he gave me a couple numbers of growers.’’
She discovered the amazing acidity she tasted in the wines came from the area’s limestone soils which have a really low pH creating stable, high-acid wines with ‘‘incredible minerality’’.
‘‘You have to have an initial natural acidity that's quite high because I like playing with residual sugar wines, wines that have sugar still left in them. We learned how to make these wines in Germany and they're really important wines.’’
‘‘Which really helps with retention of acidity that we don't get here in Australia. So you may have a potential high acid while you're waiting for your riesling to ripen and you might have an acid of 10. If the evenings are in the 20s [degrees] or even 18, it's leaching acidity before you even get to pick.’’
In the Waitaki the conditions mean makers can leave the fruit on the vines for longer to ripen than she can in Australia, where she has to take her fruit off greener which can result in less flavour.
‘‘When I make wine, I might make decisions with that to try and bring some more flavour out. But in Waitaki Valley, because you have months on vine, I'm picking May, you have these incredible high acid levels. And then you have an incredible amount of flavour power because they've been on vine for quite a long time developing those flavours.’’
These sort of conditions often create acidity that is too high for some winemakers, so much so vineyards are trialling ways to bring the levels down, but for Reed it was just what she was after so she invested thousands in the grapes from Te Kano and Dragon Bones.
‘‘So I landed and made two wines. And the one that I made from Te Kano's vineyard is called ‘‘Siren’’. And that was in 2023. And that's because this place called me. And the other wine that I made, which ended up being fruit that was starting to turn botrytisized.’’
She describes ‘‘Frequency’’ as ‘‘probably one of the best wines’’ of her career, even though it ‘‘scared the c... out of me. And it had 173 grams of sugar, but like an acid of 12 and a half, 13’’.
Despite her husband warning her that she would take five years to sell the 200 cases of half bottles of the wine, it took under a year.
‘‘So it's still asked about.’’
She believes it shows the region makes the best rieslings outside of Germany and has now made her third vintage from Waitaki grapes, another botrytis wine. The wines have labels created by Otago artist Manu Berry.
If she did not already have commitments in Australia, including 9-year-old daughter Reed and the vineyard, she admits she would be tempted to move to the Waitaki permanently.
‘‘I can’t just pick up and leave but I look at land there all the time.’’
To make the wine, she stays in the Waitaki Valley, living in a bed and breakfast owned by her television show cameraman’s mother.
‘‘So it's even more of a connection, like as though it was like I'm living in my matrix over there because it just feels like it was written before me.’’
Reed has joined the local growers association, even though she does not live in the district or even the country.
‘‘I'm more actively vocal about Waitaki Valley as a region, more so, than where I'm from here in Australia. My husband says to me, don't you realise you're an Australian winemaker? I'm a huge advocate of the region because it's a place that I feel wanted me to be a part of its story.’’
She worries that the region’s riesling vines are being torn up or grafted over to chardonnay because they cost too much to grow for the return.
‘‘So everyone's just kind of ripping out some pretty incredible vineyards.’’
Reed is a passionate advocate for the region and the very special riesling it can produce and hopes more winemakers will realise its potential.
‘‘I think since I've been there, I feel really proud of what I've made because it's actually showcasing the riesling rather than the riesling being the thing that they kind of just make and say, oh, we have riesling, but pinot and chardonnay are the most important things.’’
She believes when tasting Waitaki wines you can feel the ‘‘tension and nerviness’’ which to her makes some of the best wines in the world. But it is something they need to get the palate of the consumer used to tasting.
‘‘I'm a better winemaker today because I got to work with this fruit. What you're making is actually showcasing a region that might be gone one day. If it doesn't get to be popular enough, it will turn into grazing land. That's what's going to happen, and I'm seeing it happen.’’
So she does not hesitate when she gets a chance to promote the region, going to Auckland this month to hold a master class about riesling at the Art of Wine event.
‘‘I can actually say here's five wines from this region that I've made, and for me they're all world class, because I brought my A-game, and the fruit already had it. You can't deny it when you taste them.’’
Sierra Reed's rieslings
2023 Siren
(Te Kano Vineyard)
Waitaki
‘‘The wine is called ‘Siren’ because before I had ever heard of the Waitaki Valley, its wines found me in a glass.
"It was as though I was smacked in the face with a handful of crushed limestone while being swept below the sea and stung by an electric eel.’’
2024 Amplitude
(Foothill Grives Vineyard)
Waitaki
‘‘The name ‘Amplitude’ came to Ian when I was describing how I feel this magnetic pull every time I get close to the Waitaki, followed by this electric current running through me.
"The feeling is so similar to how the wines taste, it’s crazy.’’
2024 Frequency
(Dragon Bones Vineyard)
Waitaki
‘‘When I close my eyes and drink this wine, I peel back each layer like an onion, or I visualise a flower in bloom.
"It’s a depth of flavour that belongs to its length of time on vine and ability to grow in the beautiful vice that is Waitaki.’’
