Spade Oak Vineyard Ltd

Sobre la bodega y los vinos

Steve Voysey started out over 20 years ago, as a young winemaker down in Marlborough with Montana, the country’s largest wine producer (now part of Pernod Ricard). After a few years he was promoted to the position of Gisborne winemaker, news he broke to his wife Eileen while she was in the Blenheim hospital having their second child – which went over about as well as might be expected. Nevertheless, they decided they’d “give it three years”. On the outskirts of Gisborne, Spade Oak Vineyard basks in the sunlit central valley known locally as “the flats", the heart of Gisborne wine country, on land that has produced grapes for generations. But the Voyseys' vision is about unlocking the region’s potential, creating wines of quality from a some say brave and eclectic selection of new and classic varieties. Most of the varieties that came with the purchase are now long gone; the likes of Müller Thurgau, Chasselas, Dr Hogg and Reichensteiner, which ruled the roost when sherry was the favourite tipple for many Kiwis. “We want to capture our soils, sunshine, passion and labour,” says Eileen, “and we want to put it into the wine.”