Archived News

December 2024

Dear Friends of Bell Hill,

We’d like to wish you and your families all the best for this coming Christmas/New Year family and holiday season, winegrowing doesn’t allow for lengthy breaks but a little here and there goes a long way. Thanks for your patience in waiting to hear news from us, it has come later than hoped and planned and always amongst the pull of the vineyard but as they say…

Excitingly, the North Arm, our young vineyard planted from 2020 to 2022, will have a first small crop in 2025. These plantings bring us to 3.2ha of vines at Bell Hill with 55% Pinot Noir and 45% Chardonnay. The North Arm soil profiles mirror the older parcels of Bell Hill transcending very hard rocky limestone through to heavy calcareous clays, the plant density ranges here from 10,632 to 18,181 vines/ha.

At the winery, we are in the completion stages of a new commercial storage building and have moved into a new office area, still fine-tuning those spaces but a breath of fresh air and room to breathe. We write this as labelling the 2020 vintage is in progress as well as bottling plans for the 2023 vintage from our first foray into sourcing fruit from outside our site and region. This is partly in response to Vintage 2023 being significantly impacted at Bell Hill by a snow and sleet storm with a katabatic frost in early October 2022 as well as considerations about adding to our brand and diversifying risk – in response to more unpredictable and out of season weather patterns, the new norm. Vintage 2023 brought us sparkling base wine from Bell Hill, Central Otago Pinot Noir from 2 sites – Bendigo and Bannockburn, and Marlborough Pinot Noir and Chardonnay – all organically grown and certified fruit. Vintage 2024 gave us our Bell Hill fruit, the volume of which is smaller due to two critical rainfall events during flowering, as well as Central Otago Pinot Noir, Marlborough Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, – all organically grown and certified fruit. We see this as a path to continue what we do at Bell Hill and offer our customers and export markets something beyond our gate and small vineyard area.

So, here we are with the 2020 Vintage release. We also made Single Parcel wines with the Limeworks Chardonnay and Shelf Pinot Noir and will hold these over until the following Bell Hill 2021 wines are ready to meet you. Volumes are more generous than the 2019 vintage but not high with 2,089 bottles of Bell Hill Chardonnay, 4,167 bottles of Bell Hill Pinot Noir, and 1,046 bottles of Old Weka Pass Road Pinot Noir.

Our New Zealand Wine of the Year, the Bell Hill Chardonnay North Canterbury Single Parcel Limeworks 2020. This 100-point white tastes like it could come straight out of the Burgundy region of Puligny-Montrachet – something akin to the premier cru of Les Pucelles – but it has a distinctive energy from the intense acidity (low pH), perhaps from its calcareous soils. Its few thousand vines are literally planted in a former lime quarry, producing wines of remarkable energy and distinction - James Suckling Top 100 Wines of New Zealand 2024, Dec 10, 2024.

In July of this year, we put together our first Methode Traditionelle NV tirage bottling blend. A project long in the pipeline but very rewarding to work on and piece together with wine spanning six vintages, a lot of complexity and crystal ball gazing to consider but we feel confident the essence of Bell Hill and its soil will speak in the glass in one effervescent form or another. Now we anticipate what that secondary fermentation, the complexity of a multi-vintage blend, and time on yeast lees will create before the time for disgorging and finally, that first release!

Events over the past year have included a combined visit to Bell Hill in February of Anne Krebiehl MW (UK based), Ken Gargett (Australia), Kenichi Ohashi MW (Japan) and Stephen Wong MW (NZ) – this was part of a NZ tour and we were thrilled to be able to show them Bell Hill and the wines from here over many vintages – including our Chardonnay from 2002 that never saw the commercial light of day but has been astounding in its propensity to age.

In August we managed a quick trip to the US and met with our Californian based agent at K&L Wines, it was a first personal meeting and good to see the foundation behind the selling of our wines, it’s a small entry point to that market but we feel we are in the right hands there. We did a bit of California wine tourism and enjoyed catching up and exploring the who and where, a lot of changes in the 8 years since we last visited.

Our return to NZ in early September was met with an early growing season and with that, old Jack Frost, a long season of it with, touch wood, the last event on November 17 – yes, the second full moon in November and then we should be safe. We were invited as guest speakers to the second NZ Chardonnay Symposium in Hawkes Bay later in the month, the theme being “Sense of Place”. It was a time to reflect on why we’re here, where we are, and what we belong to – physically, philosophically, emotionally, and mindfully – to the land, its history, and our presence and activity here. The 2009 and 2019 Chardonnay had their own voice of “Sense of Place” and didn’t need introduction or explanation – very clearly, they were from here, it was a special moment in time and reflection. Somewhat related to this has been a journey to finding a way to connect to and strengthen the story of the history of the area – its past and its grieving, the Waitaha rock drawings nearby and, in conversations and work with a local Waitaha artist, we are at the beginnings of formulating a path to provide the space for what can come – art, recognition, respect – as well as address any unintentional hurt we may have caused with a representation of the rock drawings on our Old Weka Pass Road label.

October and November were dotted with visits from mail order customers, a Japanese group who have been longtime supporters, Jane Skilton MW (NZ), and James Suckling with Ryan Montgomery, his Associate Editor, all of which were very positive with James Suckling being especially supportive and in tune with what we do and have here. With the spring and growing season programme, it is difficult to say yes to every visit request, but we do our best where we can as we know that’s where and how the real connection comes. Not today though, it’s a howling Northwest wind which tests the resolve!

Forward planning to next year brings the Pinot Noir 2025 event to Christchurch – normally every three years, this is the first national 3-day Pinot Noir event since Covid – the last one being 2017. A lot has changed and now we have many influencers coming as well as the traditional journalist element we grew up and matured with. Hoping NZ Pinot Noir will capture the attention of our audiences, and we will be receiving visits from some of those guests to the vineyard during that time. We’re planning some travel in June/July to visit our all-important export markets, something we have not been able to do for several years so much to build on and reconnect with.

Last, but certainly not least, the story of our people, the website needs some up-dating from that aspect and regarding to our younger vine plantings and our farming space – it’s on the list to be sure. For people, we have the constants – Sherwyn and Marcel, Sarah in the office, plus Agnieszka and Bethan in the vineyard, new team members in the machinery space – Shane, Garry and Jimmy, and the reliance of good seasonal and casual staff. We are looking at the right fit in the winery to complete the picture. For our land, we are working on maximising that farm space and once we have the growing season and winery logistics behind us, we feel we now have the capability on the team to keep moving toward goals we set around more animals, crops and compost inputs as well as natural habitat development.

Thank you for sharing in what we do at Bell Hill and for reading this letter and its contents, we hope you enjoy the 2020 wines and look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes from Sherwyn, Marcel and everyone at Bell Hill.