More about the Land

In 1867 Johanna Enright sailed from Ireland to New Zealand and married her brother's friend, James Leslie, in 1897. They settled in Gibbston where they kept cows, chickens and pigs to feed the miners on the gold diggings. She wrote glowingly to her relatives in Shannagolden County Limerick, of her new picturesque surroundings while raising nine children in a thatched two-room cottage, a few meters west of the present day "Church". 

The Chardonnay grapes were planted on the old Leslie property in 1994. The vineyard's about two hectares, 400 meters above sea level, and 45 degrees south, which helps give the Chardonnay its character.

The Church is an old Presbyterian Church that was built in 1894 in a small coastal town called Wangolia which is about an hour south of Dunedin and North of Balclutha. The Church sat on a hill until it was moved to Gibbston in one piece in 2000. The Journey took 24 hours to move the building 300 kilometers.