Mahana
Producer website
Woollaston Estates was formed in 2000 when Philip and Chan Woollaston met Glenn and Renée Schaeffer and discovered they shared a vision of creating an estate where quality wines would be crafted. They also share a love of art, literature and the Nelson landscape, so their dream was to develop a winery that was not only highly functional, but was also sensitive to the natural aesthetic of the area and reflected their creative passion.
It is often said that great wine is made in the vineyard - all our grapes are estate-grown, enabling us to control quality from the vineyard to the bottle. Each of our vineyard sites was chosen for its unique character, the flavours that terroir and careful, hands-on viticulture give the fruit are subtly enhanced by the gentle handling of our gravity-fed winery.
The unique four-level gravity-fed winery was designed by Oregon winery architect Larry Ferar, and has been designed to incorporate the best of traditional winemaking practices with state-of-the-art modern equipment.
Built entirely of concrete, it is set into the Mahana hillside where the living roof of native tussock and shrubs allows it to blend gently with the surrounding landscape.
The winery is used to make all of the Woollaston Estates wines and is designed for the gentlest possible handling of grapes and wine, which is particularly beneficial in the making of top level Pinot Noir.
The multi-level winery uses gravity to transfer the wine through its evolution from grape to bottle. Pinot Noir grapes are hand-sorted and de-stemmed at the top level of the winery utilising a specialised de-stemmer, the only one of its kind in Australasia. It gently plucks the grapes from the stems, leaving more of the fruit intact which facilitates extended fermentation time and the retention of more berry fruit aroma in the wine. Grapes then slide down a stainless steel chute to fermentation vats on the next level. The wine continues its gravity-propelled journey down the building before being bottled under gravity on the bottom level months later.
The top three levels are dedicated to winemaking while the bottom level contains wine aging in barrels, the bottling line, wine library and The Cellars - the large hall which doubles as a winery working area and as a function room for concerts and dinners.
Two vineyards are planted on the clay-bound gravels formed in the rolling hills of Upper Moutere as ice-age glaciers melted. At 100 metres above sea level the Mahana vineyard is one of the highest in Nelson. Mahana means "warm" in Maori, and the north-facing, gently rolling slopes make good use of the spring sunshine, while catching the cooling afternoon sea breeze in mid-summer. The largest of the Woollaston Estates vineyards, it is planted predominantly in Pinot Noir, with some Pinot Gris and Riesling. The second Moutere vineyard, Kelling Road, is also planted in Pinot Noir, with some Pinot Gris. The soils at Kelling Road are similar to Mahana and its north facing slopes enjoy excellent air drainage and a long, slow ripening season.
Our Story
Mahana, which means ‘warm place’ in Maori, is nestled in the Upper Moutere Hills located west of Nelson City, New Zealand. The vineyard was founded in 2000 when Glenn Schaeffer and Philip Woollaston shared a vision of creating a world-class winery destination that would offer the very best in wine, cuisine, and accommodation.
Years later, we are at the forefront of new producers in New Zealand, creating dynamic and thought-provoking wines from dry-grown and organically farmed vineyards. We combine traditional winemaking practices with alternative thoughts and ideas in order to express the land in our own way. We hold the belief that by following the rules you can make good wine, but only by challenging the status quo and honouring your intuition can you create a work of art.
All of our grapes are estate-grown in organic, dry-farmed vineyards. This regime gives us complete quality control. The purpose-built, four-level gravity-flow winery affords us additional control allowing us to make wines with minimum intervention and without the need for pumps and excessive handling.
Our winemaker, Michael Glover, believes the best wines are “not forced or pushed, and they are definitely not manipulated. The winemaker guides the fruit in a direction that he or she thinks will best ‘capture’ or ‘reflect’ the place in which they are grown. It can be beautiful, artistic, expressive, philosophical and VERY personal. The very best wines are sincere wines and display integrity and commitment right through the process. These are wines that have a soul!”
The model of winemaking at Mahana is fundamentally centred on the expression of ‘terroir’. This ancient Burgundian philosophy is about placing the highest value on the site, season and soul of the land on which the vines are grown. With our focus on expressing terrior, we make wine without the addition of acids, enzymes and various other extraneous products and only use indigenous, ‘wild’ yeasts for fermentation. We are driven by the desire to express the uniqueness our land and don’t shy away from exploring alternative winemaking ideas like the use of skin fermentation on whites or the traditional practice of 100% whole bunch fermentation on pinot noir to achieve this.
As Michael puts it, “A believer in terroir understands that we are not of the Old World but of the New…so our wines should reflect that. We must find our own path. We must not make wines how they ‘should be’ but, rather, be brave enough to make wines how they ‘could be’.”