Andrew Parley
Multi award-winning Chapel Down winemaker Andrew Parley is a white wine wizard
- Multi award-winning Chapel Down winemaker Andrew Parley is a white wine wizard.
- Being from New Zealand, and with extensive experience in Italy and South Africa, he is an absolute perfectionist when it comes to aromatic white wines.
- Put before a discerning/intimidating audience of YOUR Archangel buyers, his pet project, Waterfalls Road Sauvignon Blanc, was a huge hit.
Andrew Parley's Story
Andrew Parley's Story
"Thank you to all the Naked Winemakers for your trust and support! We’re just getting started so surviving and becoming established is the name of the game right now so that we can keep working on pushing the styles and quality. With your support we can get way from sending our grapes to a contract winery and we can have full control and flexibility!
I got interested in winemaking when I was most of the way through my Chemical Engineering degree, after a holiday to the South Island that included a Marlborough wine trail. I went on to study Wine Science and Viticulture at Lincoln University, then worked for Montana, travelled doing flying winemaker jobs in Italy and South Africa for a couple of years, then settled down in Marlborough to work at Hunter’s for six years. I’ve been at Chapel Down in Kent since 2009, but I have this Waterfalls Road project with my friends in Marlborough who own the vineyard.
I tried being an engineer for a while, but it’s often a bit dry and tedious. I just find wines and winemaking so interesting – always more to learn, and it’s like a quest for the Holy Grail trying to make the perfect wine.
I like the blend of art and science, the variety and range of skills required for the job, the fact that every vintage and every wine is different, the hands-on nature of the job, the way the work changes with the seasons and the fact that the quest to improve your wines is never-ending.
To us our wines are special because they are from our single vineyard and they represent our place, our aims and vision, our work and effort, our hopes (and disappointments). They are true to variety and place.
This is a Marlborough, or more specifically Awatere Valley, Sauvignon Blanc. It shows the full range of flavours that the grape can produce here, from nettly through to tropical characters. I think our wine is a little less ‘in-your-face’ than some others, and it has firm acidity and typical minerality. It is maybe a little closer to Loire styles than some other Marlborough producers.
Our production is very small, but the vineyard produces more grapes, only they are contracted to bigger producers. When the contracts end, it would be great to increase Waterfalls Road’s production and this would give us more blocks to choose from when blending the styles. There are hillsides and flats planted, various row orientations and vine ages to explore more. We now have a wild ferment old-barrel style in the works, due for bottling in the next couple of months. I’d like to push both of the styles a bit further from the mainstream commercial Sauvignon Blancs.
I’d like to get a red planted too – Pinot noir or Syrah. Watch this space!"
