Boutique Winery

Pukeora Estate was very fortunate in the early years to have Michael Bennett as our original winemaker. Michael did 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 complete with drains.

Stainless steel wine fermentation and storage tanks with overall capacity of 23,000 litres have been located around the winery periphery. Open plunge tanks were moved in during vintage for pinot noir fermentation. Various other tanks were located outside holding up to another 22,000 litres. Numerous oak barriques were moved in after vintage to make up additional capacity for aging the wine.

An adjacent basement was used as an extra barrel hall allowing more use of barrels.

Maximum capacity was up to about 35 tonnes per year, with up to 34T handled currently.

Max Annabell with much initial guidance from Michael took on the role of winemaker from 2005 up until the property sale in 2023.