The Muddy Water site was carefully selected by Mike and Jane East to develop their vineyard in 1992. The property is situated halfway up the eastern side of the Waipara Valley. It is protected from the cool easterly by the Teviotdale hills and also from the worst of the Nor’wester by windbreaks.

The vineyard has its own warm microclimate and so is often one of the earlier vineyards to have budburst in the spring – extending an already long growing season. The Waipara climate is typified by summers with warm days and cool nights and a long extended dry autumn.

The soils are typically limestone derived clays, once the vines are established the need for irrigation is minimal.

The first plantings of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling were in 1993 on the flat blocks. These early plantings were on ungrafted vines – something relatively uncommon in NZ now and adds its own special character to the resulting wines.

More recent plantings took advantage of the sloping hills at the back of the property. These are all close planted, 5000 vines per ha. The vines are naturally low yielding and produce concentrated fruit. These are already producing really exciting wines and as the vines age will only get better.
 

Sustainability

The Muddy Water vineyard has always been managed with a sustainable approach but more recently the conversion to organic production has been made. The vineyard is certified organic from October 2010.

We no longer use any synthetic herbicides or fungicides. Diseases are controlled with biological sprays, seaweed, compost tea and excellent canopy management. The undervine area is managed using an undervine weeder twice a year to reduce undervine growth and also sheep are grazed during winter to give the vineyard a really good clean up.

Cover crops have been established in between the rows as an alternative to grass. The crops used are a mixture of herbs and flowering plants to encourage and provide food for beneficial insects. This in turn helps with control of insect pests.

We have started making compost using winery waste (grape skins) and hay from our paddocks. This will be spread back out into the vineyard to mulch around the vines, reducing weed competition and increasing water retention.
All our fruit is handpicked – we can control exactly which bunches make it through to the winery, no green, under-ripe or diseased fruit makes it past our team of handpickers.

All our vines are spur pruned, we have a permanent cordon which we prune back to each winter. This is maybe not so common in NZ vineyards but we find it gives us well balanced vines, reducing our need to fruit thin.

We spend a lot of time out in the vineyard observing how the season is progressing and of course doing a lot of canopy management. All our vineyard work – shoot thinning, leaf plucking, harvest – is done by hand. This is really the way to make great wine.