Boutique Winery

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 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 litres. Numerous oak barriques are moved in after vintage 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.

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 Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are drinking very nicely. (The Pinot Noir has been recommended by Winestate Magazine with 3 *'s). The Benches 07 is the most concentrated wine produced so far and although drinking well now could best be cellared for a year or two.

Production: Pinot Gris 20 cases, 170 cases each of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with 90 cases of The Benches.

2008 Vintage: A challenging year. A cruel frost scorched much of the vineyard in October. Fortunately the fruit buds were generally saved and the vines recovered. However, the vines began their growth from scratch and were 6 weeks behind normal. The Vintage of 13 tonnes was late and ripening took time to complete. The Pinot Gris was a delightful dry wine (now sold out). The other wines were lighter and more delicate than usual and are planned for release later in 2010.

2009 Vintage: Generally a straight forward year with a very warm autumn and a fairly early vintage. 16 tonnes of lovely ripe fruit were produced. None of the 09 wines are released yet. First will be the Pinot Gris (60 cases produced) due mid 2010. Production was 288 cases of chardonnay , 327 of Pinot Noir and will be 350 cases of The Benches (still in barrels).

2010 Vintage: Probably the most challenging throughout the season but saved by a long warm dry autumn resulting in a record 34 tonnes of lovely clean, ripe fruit. Despite a windy December, fruit set was good, followed by an unusually wet January (225 mm rain) creating a period of vine growth into February. Extra tucking and trimming work resulted. The season then lagged by 2-3 weeks but still produced the goods!