Boutique Winery

Text Box: Pukeora Estate has been very fortunate to have Michael Bennett as our previous winemaker. Michael has done a brilliant job of establishing the winery in the bathroom basement of the original sanatorium buildings (see our History page). After many days of jack hammering stall walls out the winery shell was prepared. The original floor was already in place with wash down floors and walls complete with drains. Stainless steel wine fermentation and storage tanks with overall capacity of 23,000 litres are located around the winery periphery. Open plunge tanks are moved in during vintage for pinot noir fermentation. Various other tanks are located outside holding up to another 22,000 l. Numerous oak barriques are used to make up additional capacity for aging the wine. A barrel hall is planned to be located in another adjacent basement. The primary equipment for vintage is a Rauke crusher/destemmer capable of 4t/hour, a Vaslin PHP130 horizontal screw press for quantities of up to 1 tonne and a Willmes 2300 bag press for bigger volumes. Maximum capacity is up to about 50 tonnes per year, with up to about 20T handled currently. Max Annabell with much initial guidance from Michael has taken on the role as winemaker since the 2005 vintage. 2002 Vintage In 2002, the winery was put to the test with bought in grapes consisting of 3 tonnes of Riesling and 4t of chardonnay. 2004 Vintage (Estate grown) The 1st commercial harvest produced 9 tonnes of grapes. Most of the 2004 wines have now sold out. 2005 Vintage Unusually strong winds in Dec followed by a cool flowering period resulted in a much reduced yield -only 3 tonnes were picked. Of this only the reds were released. These have mostly sold out. 2006 Vintage A steady build of heat through spring with no major weather events set us up with a fine fruit set to enter into summer. A warm dry period in 2006 was broken by a little rain in March and a warm finish to Autumn with about 90% harvested before heavy rain in late April. A very satisfying vintage, good quality fruit and 19 tonnes picked. Wines still available are chardonnay, pinot noir and The Benches. Bronze medals were won for the Pinot Noir and the The Benches. 2007 Vintage A cooler first half of the season resulted in a poorer fruit set. The later half was warm and very dry. Only 8 tonnes of great fruit were picked. The Pinot Gris is the only wine released so far and there is little left. The Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are to be released in Sep 08 and appear to be very nice wines (The Pinot Noir has been recommended by Winestate Magazine with 3 *’s). Production: Pinot Gris 20 cases, 170 cases each of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with 4 barrels of The Benches still gently aging.

Text Box: Michael Bennett, toiled away for months fitting out the boutique winery in the basement of the old sanatorium …

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