Neudorf Vineyards’ home plantings spill down a gentle north-facing slope overlooking a side branch of the Moutere Valley at the top of New Zealand’s South Island. The valley floor is home to hop gardens, orchards, berry farms and new vineyards.
Geography and Climate
Nelson’s Moutere Hills are sited in the centre of the northern tip of the South Island of New Zealand. Mountain ranges to the east, south and west provide a rain shadow effect while Tasman Bay to the north ensures a maritime climate, with the diurnal temperature range increasing away from the coast.
Nelson often has the highest sunshine hours in the country; summer growing months are warm and relatively dry, with the possibility of rain increasing towards Autumn. Night temperatures cool markedly towards vintage, but damaging frosts are rare.
Coordinates: 41°14′S, 173°E
Altitude: 25-110m
Heat degree days: 1147
Annual sunshine hours: 2430
Annual rainfall: 962mm
Mean January temperature: 17.7°C
Harvest: mid March – late April
Soils and sites
The Moutere Gravels Formation is an extensive Pliocene-early Pleistocene gravel sheet over 1000m deep, filling the 25 km wide Moutere depression. In places this ancient river system is overlain by and combined with successive glacial deposits from the late Quaternary period. A long period of erosion and weathering has resulted in the formation of the herring-bone patterned Moutere Hills.
Shallow sandy loam topsoil overlays the draining, gravel-threaded kaolinitic clay subsoil. This gravelly virgin soil is of naturally low fertility but retains enough moisture to support grapevines through the dry summer months.
We have planted our vineyards on selected north facing slopes of these hills, enhancing the “warm site in a cool climate” effect.
Wine Characteristics
Summers in the Moutere Hills are warm and long, with cool nights towards vintage. This allows for slow ripening of the grapes, with plenty of time for flavour development plus the retention of fine minerally acids.
The infertile clay-gravel soils contribute enhanced minerality and textural characteristic to wines from these sites. These characteristics plus a full malolactic fermentation lay the foundation for the regions most acclaimed wine, Neudorf Moutere Chardonnay.
Pinot Noir wines from the Moutere gravels also exhibit a juicy minerality, together with forest-floor, mushroom, and visceral characters to compliment the ripe black fruits.
