Te Mania and Richmond Plains winemaker Steve Gill has been making incredible, award-winning wines for two decades. As well as making organic wines, he also makes wines using bio-dynamic winemaking principles.
“There has been a huge shift to organic production in the last 10 years,” Steve said.
“David Holmes was a pioneer of organic wine production in New Zealand and I think the industry has now realised the benefits of organic production.
“Organic viticulture creates the potential for a winemaker to craft a superior wine, and the best quality wines in every region of NZ are organic.
“The only downside is that certification is expensive and time-consuming so many wineries embrace organic principles but aren’t certified. For us, organic certification on the label means people who drink our wines know with certainty they are 100 per cent organic.
“All of the wines we make are also Vegan natural wines and we use absolute minimal sulphur to stabilise the wines.
“What I’m trying to do with all the wines, but especially Sauvignon Blanc, is to build layers of flavour and texture.
“About 3 per cent of the fruit is wild fermented in oak barrels, while other fruit is fermented in smaller batches with different techniques so we can build lots of different characters to give us blending options for the final wine, we want to make a wine with an x factor rather than just another 100,000 litre single ferment.”
“This effort is paying huge dividends. At the recent Organic Wine Awards – the only awards they tend enter these days – Richmond Plains 2020 Sauvignon Blanc (RRP $21.99) and 2019 Pinot Gris ($22.99) both won gold medals.”