News

A couple of months ago Andrew and the creative genius who is our winemaker PJ Charteris had a fascinating chat with Richard Woodward from The Drinks Business mostly about our exceptionally popular Pinot Noir Blanc. We love exploring the boundaries and trying new things which Richard has written up in considerable detail. It’s all part of that balance between art and science thing.  Thought you might find his article interesting:   "Akitu’s flagship wine remains its conventional red A1 Pinot Noir, accompanied by the more approachable and generous A2 – but, however tiny its production may be (270 cases for...

In a call to discuss her reviews of our latest releases – 2019 A1 and A2 and our 3rd and most satisfying to date attempt at that groovy illusion that is our 2021 Pinot Noir Blanc the perpetually charming Joëlle Thomson introduced us to French novelist Marcel Proust’s Questionnaire. He created the 17 questions in 1886 to reveal ‘one’s true nature’ and may have properly trapped our founder, Andrew Donaldson. Read on here Here's what Joëlle has to say about our latest releases: 19/20 2019 Akitu A1 Pinot Noir RRP $65 Akitu A1 has all the bells and whistles of great...

We always knew planting vines in Wānaka’s alpine landscape was a bit risky, but as founder Andrew Donaldson likes to say, “the closer you are to death the more alive you feel” and that positive vitality definitely goes for pinot plants too. According to highly regarded Anne Krebiehl MW, our ambition and our vines’ resilience is paying off. “It was always going to be a risky venture to plant vines at 380m/1,247ft in on the slope of Mount Barker in Central Otago on New Zealand’s beautifully rugged South Island. Each spring, there is a nail-biting period when late frost is an ever-present threat and autumn is not...

In December we were the first New Zealand winery to roll out the ingenious Flexi-Hex packaging to fulfil our direct-to-consumer wine sales, this has been the final step in completely removing non recyclables and especially plastics from all our packaging. Flexi-Hex is an innovative design made from paper that is 100% plastic-free, recyclable, biodegradable, home compostable and can protect wine bottles dropped from 4metres. Now we agree that you’d have to be a bit of a meat-head to drop a perfectly good bottle of our beautiful wine from 4 metres but it should be sufficient to protect your wine from...