Otago's hot spot

It’s not just the weather that makes Northburn Station sizzle. Its family-run catering and cellar-door operation is Central Otago’s hottest new food and wine venue. Words: Suzanne Mahaffie;  Photos: Mike Heydon.

TOM PINCKNEY JOKES he knew his wife Jan was special the first time he saw her. “I thought to myself: ‘This girl can really cook. I’d better hold on to her’.” The young bachelor farmer was at his Uncle George’s 70th birthday party in the Rocky Gully ski hut on Coronet Peak. Jan’s company was catering for the event. Tom was captivated by the gorgeous blonde working furiously in the tiny kitchen and his instincts proved to be spot on. Jan’s talent with food, along with her marketing background from advertising days in Wellington and Auckland, have been a winning combo.

Ten years, three children and a mountain of hard work later, the couple are proud owners of The Shed, a function venue and wine and farm-gate shop on their 13,000-hectare high-country station near Cromwell. Northburn is still home to 10,000 merino sheep (the famous Shrek lives just over the hill at Bendigo) but by diversifying into wine and hospitality the Pinckneys are no longer so reliant on the fickleness of international commodity prices. “In the early days we were totally trapped into the wool price,” says Tom. Now at least, he says, they are masters of their own destiny.

Pinckney is a well-known name in northern Southland. Tom’s family was among the early pioneers in the area and has farmed there for more than 100 years. Tom spent his childhood at Glenaray Station in the isolated Waikaia Valley. “Whenever I go back for a visit I think what an incredibly tough place it must have been in those early days,” he says. “Even when we were kids we had to make our own fun. There was no one else around.”

Tom’s parents Ann and Peter were killed in a helicopter crash when he was 17. After travelling overseas he returned to Glenaray but he and older brother David soon realized “we didn’t really want to be each other’s boss”. The family company bought Northburn in 1993 and Tom took over as manager. Last year he and Jan bought out Northburn and built The Shed. While there was lots of champagne to celebrate, they say there were also a few sleepless nights getting the new venture off the ground. “But we’re rowing our own boat,” Tom says.

Tom first started to think about growing grapes at Northburn in the late 1990s. He’d been approached several times by local winemakers keen to grow vines on the warm north-west-facing slopes. At first he thought wine would be just another passing fad. “Like ostriches and goats.” Then he discovered that Northburn is blessed with temperatures and growing conditions similar to those of Burgundy in France. “When the Clyde Dam was being built, a lot of readings were taken in the area. And then during the 2007 drought the station itself was discovered to be the driest place in New Zealand.” Google Earth recently identified a point on Northburn as the place in New Zealand furthest from the sea with some of the country’s hottest temperatures recorded there.

The first vines were planted in 1999 with the first harvest in 2001. Today there are 17 hectares of pinot noir, four of riesling and a hectare each of pinot gris and sauvignon blanc. Many of the wines have names that reflect Central Otago’s heritage. Sandy King’s Sauvignon Blanc is in memory of a local rabbiter. Tom says, “He was a bit of a character. He used to farm a few merinos on an island in the middle of the river. A lot of the locals used to swim in the water-hole there and they remember him so it’s popular with them.” One of the rieslings is called Jeweller’s Shop. That’s what early prospectors called the block of land where the riesling grapes are planted because it was so rich in gold tailings.

Print

12next ›last »