Meet Our Makers: Dermot McCollum and Andria Monin from Stonecroft Wines
Stonecroft was established in 1982 by Dr Alan and Glennice Limmer and was one of the first vineyards in the area, which has more recently become known as the Gimblett Gravels Wine Growing District®.
At that time, the area was not valued for any type of agriculture because the land was stony and infertile. Stonecroft’s neighbours included a rubbish dump, a drag race strip, a gravel quarry and an army firing range. So Alan and Glennice were very experimental in planting vines in this area. Alan was a soil scientist and had been doing some consulting work for other vineyard owners looking at where to plant vines in Hawke’s Bay, so he was very knowledgeable about soil types in the area.
The land was not then zoned for viticulture, so it was a struggle to get planning permission to put in a winery. Alan and Glennice continued working full-time in other jobs for some time after starting the winery, planting in the evenings, etc.
Stonecroft’s first vintage was in 1987, and then in 1989, the first Syrah was released; this was the first Syrah produced commercially in New Zealand in recent times. Stonecroft later produced the first commercially produced Zinfandel in New Zealand (in 1998).
A single row of vines comprises Stonecroft’s original Syrah planting. These vines were planted in 1984 and are the oldest producing Syrah vines in New Zealand. Dr Alan Limmer rescued them for the viticultural research vine collection at Te Kauwhata (now defunct). The vines were probably imported initially from Australia around 1900 by Romeo Bragato, largely ignored, and then in the 1970s, became part of a research programme to test virus elimination techniques. Fortunately, this treatment was successful. However, once the programme was completed, the research station had no use for the vines, and they would have been discarded if Dr Limmer had not uplifted the vines and planted them at Stonecroft.
This material, representing the sole source of Syrah in New Zealand at the time, was made freely available to the New Zealand wine industry as interest in Syrah production increased.
After taking over Stonecroft in 2010, Dermot and Andria started the conversion process to organic certification and were delighted with their first certified organic wines from the 2013 vintage.
The couple is passionate about improving the health of their vineyards and the quality of their wines and believes that organic viticulture and winemaking provide the best opportunity to achieve this. Another real advantage is not having to handle or employ conventional pest control chemicals or herbicides and the obvious benefit this provides to their employees, family and the environment.
However, the transition was not without its difficulties; they had a lot of old vines used to a particular regime, and for a couple of years during that transition period, those vines did struggle. However, they bounced back, and the vines are healthier than ever. Andria now believed that the wines have really improved.
Instead of artificial sources or nitrogen, the Stonecroft team uses organic compost, fish hydrolysate (a by-product of the fishing industry), and seaweed foliar sprays to provide micronutrients. In addition, herbicide was replaced with mechanical weed control. Although they have had to improvise as they gain experience with weed control, including having bespoke tools made up for the vineyards, which are on the exceptionally stony soils of the Gimblett Gravels Winegrowing District.
As the vines became used to their new diet and the increased under-vine competition, the vine canopies naturally reduced in size, as did the fruit yields. However, there were some unexpected positive consequences. Firstly, the need to carry out expensive pre-harvest fruit thinning was reduced as the vines came into a natural balance, and pest pressure was reduced as beneficial insects became more numerous throughout our vineyards. This was accompanied by an improvement in the quality of the fruit. The grape skins became thicker, and there was a general increase in the robustness of the fruit. The thicker skins have delivered more colour and tannin in the wines with the red varieties.
Winemaker Dermot says, ‘‘In the winery, we do very little to the fruit. There are lower limits for adding sulphur for organic wines (and we do a few wines with no added sulphur), and there are restrictions on additives and processing aids.’’
Stonecroft is one of only a few organic wineries of their size to use only their estate-grown fruit, vinify the grapes on-site at their tiny winery and have a cellar door open to the public, with the owners looking after all aspects of the operation themselves.
The winery is always looking at ways to become more environmentally friendly and sustainable, recently adding solar panels and an EV charger to the winery.
Stonecroft is a small, family-owned winery making organic Gimblett Gravels wines in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. The owners are Dermot McCollum and Andria Monin, who took the reins at Stonecroft in 2010 and converted to organic production. The owners are very hands-on, managing the vineyards, winery and cellar door themselves.
At Stonecroft, we seek to express through our wines the unique character of our vineyards and each vintage. We seek to make wines that are intense, elegant and fruit-driven but capable of significant bottle development. The ability of our wines to improve in bottle has been demonstrated over more than 30 years, with many of the early examples still drinking well. Our total production is very small, with around 2500 cases produced annually over a number of varieties. Both the vineyards and the winery are certified organic.