our story

All the wines are made with grapes grown in our Mahurangi River Vineyard in the Matakana wine region just north of Auckland.

As a small family run operation, our wines celebrate the variations from one vintage to another, which makes each wine unique.  In this way we avoid the manufactured uniformity which characterises much of the wine available today.

Winners of the 2010 Manaakitanga Hospitality and Sustainability Award for "Outstanding Winery Experience", visitors to the vineyard enjoy wine tasting at the cellar door, food and wine matched offerings at the winebar, contemporary N.Z. winery architecture, and captivating views of the vineyard and the wider vista.

Frequently described in publications as a “must visit” New Zealand vineyard & winery, Ransom Wines makes a great day trip from Auckland, or a relaxing stop en-route to tourist destinations further north.

background

Back in 1993 and feeling a little jaded by his work in the corporate world, Robin hatched the out-of-left field notion of becoming a winegrower.  At that time he and Marion had participated in a vintage with their good friends David and Penny Glover at their Glovers Vineyard in the Moutere hills, Nelson, and had also, over the years, shared many fine wines with them.  Robin was smitten by the vintage experience, Marion less so.  But as she is fond of pointing out, if your partner comes up with a big idea, either you come up with a bigger one, or you go along with it .... besides, she was also becoming a little jaded with her teaching work.

So, a decision was made to buy a piece of land and plant grapes.  Where would it be?  At that time Hawkes Bay had the big name and fine reputation for winegrowing, and Marlborough was the emerging star region, but Marion and Robin both had to retain their day jobs to finance the winegrowing project.  This meant staying close to Auckland.  The logical place to look was Matakana/Mahurangi.  Though there were only three vineyards in the area at the time, they had already produced, between them, some impressive red wines.

In very short order a suitable piece of land was selected.  A north facing slope to allow maximum sun exposure and good drainage.  Originally the vineyard and surrounding land was covered in kauri forest, but this was cleared and in the second half of the 19th Century the area was devoted substantially to orchards for the Auckland market.  Some remain today.  In more recent times much of the area has been dairy farmed, but today there is more beef cattle.

With the assistance of family and friends a large portion of the vineyard was planted in the winter of 1993.  Over the next few years wider family resources were deployed, so that by the time of the first vintage in 1996, Marion's brother Robert Pinder had joined the operation.  Prior to this he had built upon his orcharding background with a course in vineyard management at EIT in Hawkes Bay.  Elder son Julian contributed art and graphic design for corporate identification and wine labels.  Younger son Gabriel joined a few years later, having worked as a cellar hand and winemaker in wineries in New Zealand, Switzerland and Italy in the interim.

The management team remains much the same today, although operational responsibilities have morphed over time.  Marion is responsible for much of the administration and for managing the winebar operation.  Robin has overall responsibility for vineyard and winery, for finances and for development of export markets.  Robert remains the vineyard manager and Gabriel's role has expanded to winery manager and winemaker, with additional responsibility for marketing within New Zealand.