Winery Overview
Supernatural Wine Co. is a producer of certified organic, naturally vinified, low sulphur white and skin-fermented wines from a north-facing hillside estate in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. Established by the Collinge family – Ginny and Jeremy and son Gregory – in 2009 when they decided to stop selling off the grapes from their estate vineyards and start producing their own wines. The family’s Millar Estate, overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Hawke’s Bay, is one-part agrotourism haven, one part art-house, and one part boutique winemaking facility. Hayden Penny is Supernatural Wine Co.’s winemaker and viticulturist. He and the Collinge family’s winemaking philosophy relies on great terroir and traditional processes. Their aim is to make all wines at Supernatural Wine Co. as naturally as possible to produce true terroir-driven wines. To do so, he dry farms the vineyard, uses indigenous yeast for fermentation, and adds nothing to the wines other than a small amount of sulphur before bottling. The wines are not fined, and filtering skin-fermented wines stopped from the 2015 vintage onward. Supernatural Wine Co. obtained full organic certification with BioGro New Zealand (www.biogro.co.nz) in March 2015 and commenced biodynamic farming practices in 2015. Hawke’s Bay is New Zealand’s oldest and second largest winemaking region. The Millar Road property is 19.4 hectares, with 8.9 hectares planted to vines. 8 hectares are Sauvignon Blanc (approximately 18,000 plants) and 0.9 hectares are Pinot Gris (approximately 1,800 plants). Vines were planted in 2004 and 2005. Over 90% of New Zealand’s vineyards are on flat land with alluvial gravel soils, so this soil and site produces very distinctive wines in a New Zealand context. The vineyard is an amazing site for viticulture being situated on a north-facing hillside with slopes up to 30 degrees. Soils are lime-rich clay with volcanic influence – they are classified as Matapiro sandy loam over Kidnappers Group sandstone and carbonaceous mudstone.