– temperatures between day and night (diurnal range) typically vary by 10ºC (50ºF).

This combination of a long growing season and cool nights helps preserve the natural acidity in the grapes and accumulates aroma and flavour constituents in the berries. The result is intense, often aromatic wines with trademark underpinning acidity.

Geologically, New Zealand is very young and active. Marlborough’s alluvial soils come from the continual process of mountain building and erosion. Vines planted in the free-draining, alluvial soils of the Wairau Valley and Awatere Valley struggle to survive, sending their roots deep into the mineral-rich earth and re-directing the life force that would normally go into foliage, into their fruit. The result – grapes of unimaginable vitality and flavour.

The Wairau River is an important feature of Marlborough. It carries the rocks and sediments from the Southern Alps and deposits them across the Wairau Valley. The Wairau River is also an essential natural aquifer providing an abundant supply of pure water for irrigation.

Marlborough provides Oyster Bay with the perfect mix of sun and ancient soils to produce wines of great character: distinctive, assertive, cool-climate

wines that define the very essence – and exclusivity – of New Zealand viticulture.

“Marlborough is such a damned good place to grow vines. In fact, I’ll go further than that. It’s one of the greatest places on earth to grow them, producing some of the world’s most remarkable wines.”
— Oz Clarke’s Wine Atlas, Websters, London, 1995.