Neudorf Vineyards

The Free Bacchus Story

Tim and Judy Finn moved to the Moutere Hills in 1976 and bought a property called Farmagusta from descendants of the German settlers who arrived in 1842. Two years later they planted Chardonnay on it — among the first commercial plantings on the South Island.

Nelson had almost no wine industry to join. The decision was not to enter a region but to argue that one existed, on north-facing Moutere gravels nobody had tested with this grape. Nearly fifty years on the region has a reputation and this estate is most of the reason, which is a heavier thing to have done than making good wine.

The vineyards are dry-farmed. In a place with reliable rainfall that is less dramatic than it sounds in California, but it still means a dry year is absorbed rather than corrected, and the vines are left to find their own water every season.

Certification is BioGro, licence number 5438, covering all single-vineyard estate wines rather than a selected range.

Moutere Chardonnay is the wine the estate is measured by, and it took 93 points from James Suckling. Rosie Finn is the second generation now working it. The interesting question for a producer this established is not whether the wine is good but whether the farming survives the handover — and a licence number is the part of that a stranger can check.