Gibbston is world-renowned for pinot noir, but when Anne Cook’s book The Gibbston Story was published in 1985, the first grape vines had not been long in the ground.
With so much having happened since, including the Kawarau Bridge hosting the world’s first commercial bungy operation, it is fitting an updated edition — being launched next Sunday — is coming out.
Anne Cook’s original book, published by Otago Heritage Books, was based on articles she had written over 13 months for Mountain Scene, which Dunedin journalist and historian George Griffiths urged her to turn into a book.
In 2015, she started thinking again about a new edition, telling her husband John Cook he would be helping with the project, but she died two years later.
John found Anne had left some musings on her computer, reflecting on Central Otago wine pioneer Alan Brady’s opening function for Gibbston Valley Wines, to which he had invited all the locals.
"Alan spoke of his dream that one day there would be vineyards on either side of the road through the valley.
"Quietly, we thought he was completely mad, as merino wool was what Gibbston grew best and had done for years and years.
"The area has [now] been transformed before our very eyes."
John says when the first Covid lockdown happened in 2020 and he could not do anything, "after about day three I was starting to walk around the room and I then thought about what Anne had said".
He found her research stored in wine boxes and spread the source material over his living room floor.
John had a good insight into Gibbston as he grew up on Waitiri Station, which his dad Esmond had bought in 1948, and later farmed it — one of five country runs which then covered most of the valley.
He and Anne sold out in 1993, moving to Central Otago after also starting one of Gibbston’s early vineyards, award-winning Nevis Bluff.
Viticulturist Tim Morrison-Deaker says the Cooks were his first clients.
"We were told by a lot of the farming fraternity we were ruining really good merino country.
"John and Anne embraced a different idea and set aside some of their best land to trial viticulture, and were really pioneers in that regime."
However, he notes, "there’s two things that killed vineyards in Gibbston back then — one was no root stock and other was no frost fighting, and unfortunately they were burdened with both of those".
John says much of Anne’s original history has been supplemented by extra material he unearthed.
One chapter recalls the 15 mining dredges on the Kawarau River between Roaring Meg and the Kawarau Bridge.
Another focuses largely on the Nevis Bluff and its many slips, revealing about $23 million has been spent on them to keep the road open.
Morrison-Deaker notes that due to Brady, a Gibbston character zone is in place to protect the viability of viticulture with its requirement for wind machines, bird-scaring gas guns and spraying.
"Look, there’s two ways to kill a vineyard; one is phylloxera and the other is to put a house beside it.
"But if people come into Gibbston and understand farming is part of the rural subdivision, then everything can run a lot more smoothly."
Mindful of examples like Gibbston Valley Station’s fast-track proposal for 900 homes, John writes: "Some vineyard owners have expressed concerns about future developments in Gibbston, noting that while high-density residential settlements may initially generate more revenue than viticulture and wine tourism, such growth could potentially affect the long-term viability of the viticulture sector if they cannot co-exist.
"Gibbston is evolving, and one wonders whether it will maintain its focus as a wine tourism region or transition into a large town, or both."
Morrison-Deaker offers a solution, however.
"Ultimately we can’t grow grapes really above kind of 500 metres above sea level.
"Wouldn’t that be a better place to start planting houses, and have them separated?
"There’d be a lot less conflict around the [wind] machines, bird scaring and spray if we had housing away from wine tourism and vineyards."
