Whalebone Bay

A classic wine experience from New Zealand.

Whalebone Bay is a colloquial term given to the shores of Port Underwood in Marlborough New Zealand that are littered with old whale bone remnants. It was here in the mid-1800s that whaling was in full swing.

The Pioneering spirit and uncompromising attitude of these people is reflected today by the dedication of Marlborough grape growers to producing top quality fruit. The wine is selected from special parcels of fruit from Marlborough vineyards at the top of the South Island of New Zealand.

WINEMAKER:

Megan Simmonds

After completing study in 1998, and travelling, Megan has since worked in the wine industry for 17 years. She enjoys the dynamic wine industry and loves having Marlborough as her home. 

Prior to her current role Megan has worked for various wineries, during exciting times of growth, development and success in Marlborough.

She enjoys the buzz of vintage where people come from all around the world to join the team and make the best wine possible. 

Things that excite Megan about the wine industry are meeting and working with incredibly passionate and talented people. It is incredibly dynamic and constantly evolving, super challenging at times, but amazingly rewarding.  “What I love most is being part of a dedicated, fantastic team that consistently produce outstanding wines to be enjoyed by all.”
 

RECENT REVIEWS

Whalebone Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2020

5 Stars – 93 Points by Sam Kim, Wine Orbit (Aug 2020)

Fabulously fruited and lively, the wine is filled with delicious fruit flavours of passionfruit, kiwifruit and nectarine with a lovely lemon zest overtone. It's flavoursome and punchy, offering excellent drinking. At its best: now to 2022. 

Whalebone Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2019

4.5 Stars – 91 Points by Sam Kim, Wine Orbit (Sept 2019)

Punchy and intensely aromatic, the wine shows passionfruit, feijoa and Gala apple characters on the nose, leading to a mouth-watering palate that is bright and flavoursome. It is up front and delectable. At its best: now to 2021. 

SOUTHERN VALLEYS

Wrapping around the surrounding hills the Omaka, Fairhall, Brancott, Ben Morven and Waihopai Valleys make up this important sub-region. Soils and meso-climates vary but tend to be heavier and contain more clay than Wairau. It also becomes cooler and drier further south into the valleys. A broad range of varieties are grown according to the merit of each site, with particularly good Pinot Noir and aromatics being produced by the area.

WAIRAU VALLEY

Old, gravely riverbed soils, and diverse aspects and rainfall create numerous meso-climates within this sub-region. Broadly, it covers a range of cooler, drier inland sites; barren stony, early-ripening sites; and sea-breeze moderated coastal sites. Across the sub-region wines reflect the strengths of individual vineyards and vignerons, but all have the hallmark fruit intensity and body.

AWATERE VALLEY

The Awatere Valley is the most geographically distinct sub-region, lying south of the Wairau Valley and stretching inland from the sea, and climbing towards the inland Kaikoura ranges. Cooler, drier, windier and often with a degree of elevation, sites with typically lower yields produce bright, aromatic Pinot Noir and dramatic, distinctive Sauvignons, both of which are attracting increasing international acclaim.

History of Whalebone Bay Wines

Local Māori were drawn to work in the industry, and eventually nearly half all shore-based whalers were Māori. Shore-based whalers also depended on Māori for food. Traditionally, Māori had a long association with whales, which feature in many stories, carvings and place names. While it is unclear if early Māori hunted whales, they prized the remains of stranded whales as a source of meat and teeth and bones for ornaments and utensils.

European shore-based whalers initially hunted using rowboats and hand-held lances and harpoons. Harpoons with exploding heads were introduced in the 1920s. An Italian family living in Picton, the Peranos, first used motor launches in 1911 and established three whaling stations on Arapawa Island that operated until whaling ended in 1964.

The industry peaked in 1960, when 226 humpback whales were caught in one season. By 1962, humpback numbers were so low the Peranos tried hunting orca for oil, but this proved uneconomical. Falling prices for sperm whale oil and competition from foreign fleets ended the industry in the Marlborough Sounds.

Each year, former Marlborough whalers sit alongside researchers on top of Arapawa Island, overlooking Cook Strait, to find and count migrating whales as part of a conservation programme with the Department of Conservation.

For almost 140 years, those same whalers and their ancestors had boarded chase boats and harpooned whales, towing them back to a whaling station to render oil from the blubber.

Whaling was New Zealand’s first commercial industry and was big business in Marlborough, both in the northern Marlborough Sounds and Port Underwood. The first whaling station, Te Awaiti on Arapawa Island, was established by Australian ex-convict John (Jacky) Guard in the 1820s. Guard was one of the first Europeans to settle in the South Island. His wife, Betty, was the first female settler here, and their first two children, a boy and girl, the first of each gender to be born here. The Guards also established the first whaling station in Port Underwood.

Many descendants of the first whalers remain in the Sounds today, including the Nortons, Jacksons, Toms, Peranos, Keenans, Loves and Heberleys.

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