The History of Our Site
The vineyard building and the house next to it, were built in the 1930s by Vic and Mary de Bettencor. Vic was the third generation of the de Bettencor family to live and work in this valley. His grandfather, Braventura de Bettencor, was a ‘forty-niner’ miner. Originally from the Azores, where his family were grapegrowers, Braventura travelled first to California to participate in the gold rush of 1849, then on to the Australian gold rush where he met his first wife, Henrietta Tait, the daughter of an English Bishop (her sister married into the Church – her husband, Randall Davidson, went on to become the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1903-1928).
He and Henrietta moved from Australia to Otago where he first prospected on the Clutha. Later on Braventura and Bill Perriam staked a claim in the Hetters Gully at the mouth of this valley (2.5km south of this building –along what is today known as Clarks Road). De Bettencor’s and Perriam’s sluicing scars can still be seen on the hills to the south of this site. They never found huge quantities of gold, but plenty of soil and gravel was washed down to the flats. The de Bettencors eventually planted fruit orchards on this washed down soil and settled at the start of this valley just to the north of today’s Clarks Road – an orchard still exists on the site. Sadly Henrietta died giving birth to their second child. The Perriams settled closer to Crowell, to the south of Clarks Road just down from Pisa Moorings.
The land this vineyard was planted on was part of the original Mt Pisa Station – we have a photograph taken in the late 1890s of Mt Pisa shepherds resting at the bottom end of our property next to the same row of poplar trees that still stand at the spot. A pub – called the Pig & Whistle – was built just to the south of the woolshed (house) next door at Pisa Range Estate. It supplied alcohol and – according to folklore – other ‘services’ to those working on Mt Pisa station. Unfortunately, it was demolished in the 1970s.
After World War I some of Mt Pisa was broken up and given to the returned servicemen. Bill Clark was allocated this area. He never had great access to water and struggled to grow crops. The land was taken over by Vic de Bettencor who did much better due to his being able to access a share of the family water right – an inheritance from grandfather Braventura’s gold mining past. The de Bettencors sold this land to the Lloyds in the 1950s and in the 1970s they Lloyds sold to the McKays. Kawarau Estate purchased 100 acres of this land in 1993 when the McKay farm was sub-divided. We sold 30 of these acres to Warwick and Jenny Hawker of Pisa Range Estate in 1994.
We were keen to buy this land because it had been identified by the 1986 climate survey conducted by MAFTEC South and the Ministry of Works and Development as having the highest number of growing degree days of the 70 sites surveyed in the Upper Clutha Valley. When we purchased and started plantings grapes we were told by locals that we were ‘mad townies’ and that grapes would never grow well here. We were the pioneer vineyard planters along SH6. We think that we have proved the sceptics wrong….
Wendy Hinton and Charles Finny, owners of Kawarau Estate, have long links to this region. Wendy’s mother Hazel can remember playing tennis on a grass courth next to where your car is most probably parked. Hazel’s aunt Gabrielle Parker was the first wife of William McMillan, father of Murray, the present owners of Mt Pisa station. Charles’ pioneering ancestors – the Blacks and the Maces – established two towns in the area – Blacks (Ophir) and Macetown. Wendy and Charles are determined to keep the region’s rich heritage alive – that is why they celebrate the region’s pioneers on every bottle of Kawarau Estate wine.
TERRIOR
As a region, Central Otago’s climate is more continental than the generally temperate weather of New Zealand. Cold winters and hot summers are the norm but of greatest benefit is the autumn temperature shift from daytime high to nighttime low – ideal for ripening the fruit and perfect for Pinot Noir.
This is complemented by low humidity and rainfall, keeping pest and disease pressure at a minimum – our own micro-climate rarely gets more than 250mm of rainfall a year!
Our soils are Waenga loam of consistent depth atop river gravels formed by glacial action. Relatively young by global standards Central Otago soil is mineral rich but low in organic matter – hence the need for organic practices to increase the plant available nutrients and biodiversity of the vineyard.
