Welcome to Melness wines NZ
Melness is a beautiful coastal village in the remote Scottish Highlands characterized by passion, determination, creativity and a resonant relationship with the landscape. This unique character combines with our innovation to produce award winning New Zealand wine that communicates with your senses in subtle and powerful ways.
Grapes for the Melness Wines are predominantly sourced from the Waipara, Canterbury Region with the benefit of incorporating some niche micro-climates from contract growers in the Nelson Wine growing Region. This enables us to present wines of distinction and style.
Background
Melness is named after a beautiful coastal village in the remote Scottish Highlands where the ancestors of the founders hale from. Characterised by passion, determination, creativity and a resonant relationship with the landscape, this unique character combines with New Zealand’s innovation to produce award winning wines that communicate with your senses in subtle and powerful ways.
Melness Wines was established in Cust, North Canterbury by Norma & Colin Marshall who planted a range of grape varieties including Gewurztraminer, Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
Melness also sourced grapes from a range of Canterbury Vineyards as far south as Burnham, just South of Christchurch, up as far as Waipara in the North Canterbury area. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc was eventually added to the range to complete the varietal mix.
Close co-operation between Melness Wines and the Donaldson family of Pegasus Bay winery meant the wines were made with delicacy and flare with the winemaking team of Lynnette and Matt Donaldson overseeing all facets of the winemaking process.
After many years of producing award winning wines the Marshall’s decided to retire from their vineyard and winemaking business and entered into negotiations with Kahurangi Estate Ltd another boutique family owned winery based at Upper Moutere in the Nelson region.
Amanda and Greg Day, the owners of Kahurangi Estate, wished to retain the essence and style of the Melness brand and have retained many of the former Melness contract grape growers to supply fruit from the Canterbury region and have retained the excellent winemaking skills of Lynn and Matt Donaldson with the Riesling and Chardonnay being continued to be made at Pegasus Bay Winery.
The market
Melness will continue to be marketed as a high end wine with a concentration on the restaurant business and specialist wine retailers. The brand is treated separately from the Kahurangi brand to retain its uniqueness.
The brand will also be marketed internationally by Kahurangi Estate who already has an extensive network of overseas customers.
