The People Who Believed in the Waitaki
Updated: 4 days ago
The vineyard looks out across the Waitaki Valley.
When Jim Jerram and Jeff Sinnott began looking for vineyard land in 1998, the Waitaki had little commercial winegrowing history to reassure them. The limestone slope near Duntroon offered a possibility. Planting it meant committing years of work before a bottle could show whether that belief was well placed.
Others were drawn to the valley too. Some brought long careers in wine; some were returning to familiar country. Their decisions gradually put vines into the landscape and Waitaki wines onto tables beyond it.
Jim Jerram and Jeff Sinnott, choosing the slope
In 1998, Jim Jerram and his brother-in-law Jeff Sinnott began searching for grape-growing land. Jerram had spent twenty-nine years in medicine, including work at Kunde Hospital near Mount Everest and at the University of Otago. Sinnott brought experience as a sommelier, viticulturist and winemaker. Their search led to the north-facing limestone escarpment overlooking the braided Waitaki River that became Clos Ostler.
New Zealand Winegrowers records the first Pinot Noir planting here in 2002, followed by further Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris over the next two years. The name recalled Jerram’s great-grandfather William Ostler, who had arrived in the area from Yorkshire in the nineteenth century. The vineyard joined a family connection to the district with a new ambition for its land.
John Forrest, an early wine from Drs Creek
John Forrest’s own account supplies another early thread. He recalls making Pinot Noir in 2002 from Howard Paterson’s pioneering Drs Creek vineyard. His interest endured, with the combination of floral fragrance and savoury character remaining central to the way he describes the valley’s wines.
A later Forrest estate account describes a visit to the newly acquired Clos Carluke site and time with the Ostler team. There were plans for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and encouraging recognition for wines already made. It is a glimpse of the valley during its early growth, with neighbours comparing experiences as their vineyards began to find an audience.
Grant Taylor, a return to Kurow
Grant Taylor approached the Waitaki with extensive experience of Otago Pinot Noir. After winemaking in California, he returned to New Zealand and joined Gibbston Valley in 1993. He established Valli in 1998 to investigate the differences between Otago’s winegrowing places, a project that subsequently included the Waitaki.
In a 2024 profile for New Zealand Winegrower, Taylor described the Waitaki as having “a completely different climate and soils”. That year, he and his wife Nicole moved to the Hakataramea Valley, having renovated Kurow’s former Post Office as the Valli Wine Bar. Kurow was also his birthplace. His professional interest in the region had become a return home.
The Roulet family, continuing the work
Our family’s belief in the Waitaki is why we have taken on the care of Clos Ostler. We want to see the valley thrive, and its wines recognised for the character that drew us here.
The older bottles of Caroline’s make that responsibility particularly tangible. They come from vines planted by people who could only imagine how the wines might develop over twenty years. We can now open those bottles and taste something of what their work made possible. Caring for the vineyard, retaining its history and sharing the wines are all part of continuing it.
Our hopes extend beyond our own gate. A visitor who tastes several Waitaki estates, meets their growers and spends time in the valley leaves with a fuller sense of the place. We would like our family’s work to help make those encounters more common.
Making a region accessible
Paul and Alisa Nicholls’ River T Estate has offered visitors the chance to taste wines from several local producers, as recorded by New Zealand Winegrowers. Sue Mansworth’s wine tours likewise brought people into contact with the growers themselves. A conversation over a glass can make a once-unfamiliar region feel surprisingly close.
The vineyards have their differences, and tasting across them is part of getting to know the Waitaki. Behind each bottle are people who have watched particular rows through many seasons and come to understand them through work.
The limestone wall beside the vines at Clos Ostler.
The wall was built as the vineyard was planted, using limestone boulders with scallop shells embedded in them. It gave the new vines their enclosure and brought the marine history of the ground into view. Those shells remain one of the estate’s most distinctive details.
We are fortunate to be able to taste the early Caroline’s vintages today. The people who planted those vines had to begin without that reassurance. Their confidence in the valley gave the rest of us something to build on.
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