Rockburn Wines' new winery at the corner of Gair Ave & McNulty Rd in Cromwell is designed to process 200 tonne of fruit, with further potential to expand to 500 tonne. The facility was finished just in time for the bumper 2006 vintage. The Cromwell site for the winery was chosen for its central location between Rockburn's two vineyards - the older 8 ha site on Gibbston Back Road in Gibbston Valley, and the younger 33 ha planting occupying the Parkburn terrace beneath the Pisa range, overlooking Lake Dunstan.

Winemaker Malcolm Francis designed the operation of the new winery to best reflect his own philosophies: to treat the fruit (and wine) as gently as possible, with minimum interference and maximum ease of use (vintage workers commonly only have one hand available as the other is usually holding a beer or coffee). To this end, the Destemmer is uniquely mounted above the Pinot Noir fermenters. The fruit travels up to it on a slow conveyor (allowing sorting and removal of any sub-standard fruit, leaves or earwigs) and is destemmed directly into the fermenter, minimizing damage to the whole berries and thereby retaining the delicate fruit aromas and flavours that typify great Central Otago Pinot Noir. The removed stems are collected behind the fermenter and returned to the vineyard compost pit, eventually to further enhance the organic life of our soils.

Our white varieties are all gently whole-bunch pressed, 3 tonne at a time, reducing extraction of bitter phenolics and again retaining delicate aromatics. The white juice of each variety is pumped into one (or two) of our 10 fermentation tanks (which are all of different volumes to allow for the different tonnages of each variety) for fermentation into wine.

The pressed bunches are then returned to our compost pit, as are the Pinot Noir skins which are pressed once they have imparted enough colour, tannin and flavour to the wine. As with all our fermentation tanks, our two barrel cellars (red and white) are fully temperature controlled, and are carefully humidified as well. Their walls are constructed from two slabs of concrete sandwiching 100mm of polystyrene to negate any heat loss or gain during the dramatic seasons we enjoy here in Central Otago. Our Pinot Noir lives in barrel for 10 months, going through malo-lactic fermentation as we allow it to naturally warm in the Spring, and is brought out and bottled shortly before (or during!) the ensuing vintage.

FYI: The wines enjoy listening to loud rock music during vintage (the yeast are having the most debauched party of their lives), but in later months they are played classical strains to ease them into their mature years in the bottle. Knowing this may help you decide when to visit us here in Cromwell!