Millton Vineyards

The Free Bacchus Story

James and Annie Millton converted their Gisborne estate to biodynamics in the 1980s — among the first conversions in the southern hemisphere, and certainly the first in New Zealand.

For a long time that placed them in an odd position. They were farming with a rigour the international wine conversation would eventually catch up to, but doing it in Gisborne, a region known chiefly for bulk Chardonnay. There was no local audience for what they were doing and no vocabulary yet for describing it. The estate holds both Demeter biodynamic and BioGro NZ certified organic designations, applied across Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Viognier and a range reflecting an interest in Alsatian and Rhône varieties grown in a warm maritime climate.

The Te Arai Chenin Blanc is the wine most often named as the estate's finest, aged in old oak with the seriousness usually reserved for Vouvray, and among the most convincing Chenin made anywhere outside France. The wines have drawn 94 points from Wine Advocate, and the Clos de Ste Anne range, from a sheltered hill site with better drainage and more complex soils than the valley floor, is the top of the range.

Millton's own position is that you should be wary of any wine that flies the organic flag too high, because organics and biodynamics ought to be an honest baseline rather than a sales line.

Millton is the founding argument that New Zealand biodynamic wine is serious, and a standing reminder that a region's reputation and its potential are different things.