Rippon Vineyard

The Free Bacchus Story

Rippon is probably the most photographed vineyard in the southern hemisphere: a sloping terrace above Lake Wānaka, glacial water in the foreground, the mountains of Mount Aspiring behind. The photograph has done the estate no favours, because it makes people assume the view is the point.

The Mills family have farmed it under BioGro certified organic and certified biodynamic standards for decades, converting gradually on the conviction that the schist and sedimentary soils of the lakeside terrace would only express their full character without chemistry. The farm is properly integrated — vineyard, a small olive grove and a vegetable garden all managed as a single biodynamic property rather than a vineyard with ornamental extras.

Nick Mills explains the estate through tūrangawaewae, the Māori idea of a place to put your feet, rather than through viticultural vocabulary. His father had farmed it organically and dry-grown for three decades before he took over in 2003.

The Mature Vine Pinot Noir, from plantings now over thirty years old, has drawn 96 points from Wine Advocate and sits in most collectors' top five for Central Otago. The Riesling and the Emma's Block Chardonnay are equally serious, and together they make the estate's quieter argument that the region's potential extends well past Pinot Noir.

People tend to visit once and then spend several years trying to secure an allocation, which is the usual sequence for wines this good made in this quantity.