Pyramid Valley Vineyards

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Pyramid Valley Vineyards

Wines that breathe of their place.

21/10/2026

“Half a century later, it’s New Zealand’s turn to upset that new/old world order.”

That’s quite an opening from Max Allen who introduces our Opposites < > Attract tastings in the Financial Review and takes us back 50 years to the famous Judgement of Paris.

Max joined us in Christchurch for the first of our three blind tastings, putting ten Chardonnays from Pyramid Valley and Smith & Sheth alongside 14 from Burgundy.

What we didn’t know at the time was whether the results we saw that day would hold up when we did it all again in London and Burgundy.

Turns out, they did.

As Max writes, despite the different locations and different groups of tasters, the results across all three tastings were “remarkably similar”.

AFR subscribers can read Max’s full piece at the link below 👇🏻

https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/food-and-w**e/french-vs-nz-the-results-of-a-blind-w**e-tasting-might-surprise-you-20261009-p611qz

12/10/2026

We often talk about our Waikari and Low Burn properties being ‘properly cool’, allowing us to ripen grapes to good natural alcohols while retaining excellent acidity and the complex, ripe flavours and aromas we look for in great cool-climate Chardonnay.

So you can imagine we were pretty pumped to read this note from Jancis Robinson MW on our Low Burn Chardonnay, tasted blind at our Opposites < > Attract event in Burgundy last month:

“Good racy acidity. Very fluid – cool as a mountain stream before a distinctly dry finish.”

We’re loving the visual description… especially as this w**e is named after the Low Burn, a stream running through the property!

Swipe through for Jancis’ notes on the Pyramid Valley and Smith & Sheth w**es she recommended in her FT Weekend article. Link in comments for more on the tasting.

07/10/2026

The 2024 Pyramid Valley Botanicals Collection is here.

For our w**emaker Huw, one of the pleasures of making these w**es each year is seeing how recognisable the vineyard parcels remain, whatever the season brings, and how they can still surprise him.

A warm, dry season at Waikari gave the four w**es ripe fruit and plenty of flavour, each with its own distinct personality. At Low Burn, an early arrival of autumn gave Snake’s Tongue a longer, gentler run to harvest.

Discover all five w**es and read Huw’s notes on the vintage in our Journal. Including one w**e he thinks might be the best he’s ever made.

https://pleasureculturecraft.com/blogs/w**e/introducing-the-2024-pyramid-valley-botanicals-collection

06/10/2026

03/10/2026

Your weekend read is here… (but Steve beat you to it!)

A few months ago, Opposites < > Attract was just a big, bold, ambitious idea: put our New Zealand Chardonnay up against some of Burgundy’s finest, serve the w**es blind, and see what happens.

Three tastings later (one each in Christchurch, London and Burgundy), Jancis Robinson MW’s story about the tastings has just been published across a whopping three pages of FT Weekend, one of the UK’s most prestigious and influential weekend publications.

The headline: “A humbling for white burgundy.” 😳

Our Pyramid Valley Low Burn and North Canterbury Chardonnays, and Smith & Sheth Onewa and Howell Chardonnays all make Jancis’ recommended list, plus some pretty great words for the yet to be released Smith & Sheth Les Graviers Chardonnay. As for her thoughts on the tasting? She describes the whole exercise as “a real triumph for New Zealand”.

There’s plenty more we’ll be sharing from this, but we’re taking the rest of the weekend off to celebrate (while keeping a close eye on the FT comments thread...)

Link below for Jancis’ full article, which she has generously made free for all on her website.

https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/new-zealand-challenge-white-burgundy

01/10/2026

‘Exceptional quality.’ ‘Classic great Chablis.’ ‘Real class’.

Roger Jones - diligently scribing his notes here - was one of the leading w**e minds who joined us at our London Opposites < > Attract event to taste 24 Chardonnays blind - ten from Pyramid Valley and Smith & Sheth, alongside 14 from Burgundy.

Writing for The Buyer, his scores included 96 points for Pyramid Valley Low Burn Chardonnay, alongside 95 points for both North Canterbury Chardonnay and Lion’s Tooth Chardonnay.

He highlighted Low Burn as ‘exceptional quality’, North Canterbury had him thinking ‘classic great Chablis’, and Lion’s Tooth (rightly!) ‘pure class’.

Across the wider tasting, the Smith & Sheth w**es also gave him plenty to talk about, including 96 points for Howell Chardonnay and the yet-to-be-released Les Graviers.

Swipe through for Roger’s take on the w**es, including a few cases where New Zealand had him thinking Burgundy.

Full The Buyer story 👇
https://www.the-buyer.net/tasting/w**e/opposites-attract-burgundy

23/09/2026

It’s been a busy couple of months… here’s just a taster of what we’ve been up to, and what’s to come…

17/05/2026

💪 We're absolutely stoked to share that Pyramid Valley has come in at #12 in The Real Review's Top 50 Wineries of New Zealand 2026 💪

This is the ninth year of Top Wineries and the full list highlights 143 of Aotearoa's finest w**e estates and producers. The algorithm analyses two years worth of reviews and scores to whittle down the best of the bunch (no pun intended).

Check out the company we're in - Bell Hill, Felton Road Prophet's Rock, Quartz Reef Wines, Te Whare Ra (TWR) Wines, Destiny Bay, Neudorf Vineyards, Rippon Te Mata Estate Winery Dry River Wines ... and that's just the top dozen 👏 (...there's a case idea in that!).

Thank you to The Real Review NZ judges Stephen Wong MW and Jane Skilton MW, and to our incredible team in the vineyard and w**ery who make these results possible.

📸 2026 harvest photos thanks to Richard Brimer Photographer

01/05/2026

Sauvignon Blanc: It’s the variety that put New Zealand firmly on the world w**e map, known for packing a punch in its aromatic intensity and flavours. But we like to do things a bit differently with Sauvignon here...

Our North Canterbury Sauvignon+ is from two vineyards on Glasnevin Gravels and Omihi clay soils, wild fermented with a touch of skins in concrete tulipes and old barrels. We love its full, mouth-filling texture with subtle notes of lemongrass and dried herbs, and a salivating acidity that is a hallmark of the region.

And that label? It’s a cyanotype print of the ‘Queen Anne’s lace’ - a plant found in our vineyards, set on a vivid green background that celebrates our natural approach to farming, alongside the ‘colour’ of the Pyramid Valley story.

It’s a downright delicious drop and a perfect way to end your Sauvignon Blanc Day!

16/04/2026

First light on the last day of harvest at our Waikari Estate.

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📸 .brim
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Address

Hawarden

Website

http://www.pyramidvalley.co.nz/

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