VINEYARD

Unsuitable for growing grapes

For years, the rolling Awatere Valley foothills were regarded as unsuitable for grape growing. Falling in love with the land, we thought differently.

Seaview Vineyard

Transforming the Land

By working sympathetically with the natural contours across our uniquely folded landscape to optimise aspect to the sun, the rugged pastoral land was transformed into a sustainable vineyard known today as Seaview. Stretching from the foothills of the Kaikoura Ranges to undulating downs overlooking Cook Strait, Seaview Vineyard is the single largest privately owned vineyard in New Zealand.

Sustainability

Better than we found it

We're always trialing new sustainability initiatives to leave the land better than we found it. We achieve this through a range of initiatives and on-going projects including developing wetlands, endophytic grass and planting wildflowers between the rows. To find out more click the link below.

Our vineyard experts

David Sheard

Viticulture Manager

David joins Yealands as our new Viticulture Manager after many years at Constellation Wines where he was Vice President NZ Viticulture Operations. He will have oversight of all of the Yealands vineyard management and technical operations .

David grew up in Hawke’s Bay region surrounded by vineyards and wineries that fascinated him from a young age. His love for the wine industry developed further during school holidays that were spent in the family vineyards of school friends earning extra pocket money and from there it was a natural progression to studying for a Bachelor of Viticulture and Diploma in Winemaking at EIT and Charles Sturt University, respectively.

Darrin Wood (Woody)

Estate Operations Manager

Whilst Woody joined the Yealands team in 2015, he was certainly no stranger to the business having worked with Peter and the Viticultural team since our inception. Woody initially supplied all the John Deere machinery as Tasman Area Manager at Gordon Handy.

Woody supplied all our John Deere machinery as Tasman Area Manager at Gordon Handy. Prior to that Woody spent time in the army and along with family keeps himself busy away from work on his own vineyard block in the Wairau Valley.

TIME LAPSE VIDEOS

Our vineyard through the seasons

The Yealands Family Wines Story

Budburst to Harvest

The grape starts its annual growth cycle in the spring with budburst. In the Southern Hemisphere, this stage begins around September while in the Northern Hemisphere it begins around March when daily temperatures begin to surpass 10 °C.

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North View Year

To capture this video, the camera was perfectly positioned on Lookout Point to reveal changes in both the vineyard, as well as spectacular weather conditions over Cook Strait.

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West View Two Days

Spectacular sunsets cap off the working day on Yealands Estate.

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