Organic and biodynamic Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling from four small north-facing hillside vineyards in Omihi, Waipara Valley
Black Estate farms four small vineyards on the north-facing hillsides of Omihi, in North Canterbury's Waipara Valley. Set between the Southern Alps and the Pacific, the climate is cool and changeable, with cool nights all year and usually long, dry autumns.
Home is Awapuni clay loam over calcium carbonate deposits; Damsteep, 10 km north at the foot of the Omihi Saddle, is clay over fractured limestone and sandstone. Netherwood, planted in 1986 and the first hillside planting in Waipara, sits on Waipara Greensand, a green-grey glauconitic sandstone. Skypunch, a friend's vineyard beside Home, has been leased since 2023.
Russell and Kumiko Black planted the original Home vines in 1994: ungrafted Pinot Noir and Mendoza Chardonnay. Nicholas Brown and Pen Naish bought Home with Pen's family in 2007, kept the name and have farmed organically and biodynamically ever since. Damsteep followed in 2012 and Netherwood in 2015.
Nicholas runs the vineyards and winemaking, and Pen leads sales, the restaurant and cellar door. The restaurant now serves beef from the farm's own low-line Angus cattle.
Before Black Estate, Nicholas worked in the cellars of Isole e Olena in Chianti and Opus One in the Napa Valley. All the wines are wild fermented, bottled with sulphur the only addition, and sealed under screwcap.