Churton Wines

The Free Bacchus Story

Churton is named after the Shropshire farm where Sam Weaver grew up. He was lured to New Zealand in 1989, determined to make his own wine, and in 1997 he and Mandy sold the whole of their first tiny crop of Sauvignon Blanc to Tanners, the wine merchant in Shrewsbury. In 2000 they began planting their own hillside, and the first block in the ground was the one they called The Abyss.

Marlborough’s vines mostly grow on the free-draining gravels of its valley floors. Churton is on a north-east-facing hillside instead, with 22 hectares of vines on a 51-hectare farm and a deep layer of clay-based loess over the gravels. The clay holds water, so the Weavers dry farm when the season allows. The Abyss block ends at a cliff that drops 50 metres to the Omaka River, and the estate says frost literally falls off it.

Sam first learned about organic viticulture in 1988, while studying for the Master of Wine, the same year the Weavers first met James Millton, the Gisborne biodynamic grower, now a good friend. Sam went on to chair New Zealand’s Biodynamic Farming Association. Churton has been certified organic by BioGro since 2008. The biodynamic farming is not certified; Churton is not on Demeter’s register. The blocks have names instead of numbers, and several are cuts of meat, Flank, Blade, Topside, Rump and Best End, in honour of the grazing animals.

Mandy Weaver describes the farm as one living organism: vines, pasture, cattle, gardens and bees. In 2014 a freak hailstorm split the grapes, and she says the bees went straight to work on the damaged fruit and cleaned out the split berries before sour rot could set in. Tanners, which still sells Churton, says The Abyss is made only in exceptional vintages.