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Forgotten Corners Rolling with the bunches at Pyramid Farm From left, Chris, Julia, Jess, Ellie and Richard Dawkins. Photo Scott Hammond/Stuff
SOPHIE PREECE
DEVELOPING A bespoke vineyard on an award-winning Marlborough farm is a “once in a lifetime opportunity”, says viticulturist Richard Hunter. He’s working with the Dawkins family to establish a 44 hectare vineyard at Pyramid Farm, with a “jigsaw” of blocks to follow the rolling hills of this Avon Valley property. The site is unique, the soil is healthy, and the stakeholders are devoted to the property and its biodiversity, Richard says. That led to a decision at the start of the process that they’d not recontour the land for the sake of neat and tidy north-south rows. “I am fortunate enough to develop a vineyard on a site with beautiful soil. I have absolutely no right to drive a bulldozer through this terroir and ruin decades of good farming.” The Dawkins family farms sheep and cattle, integrated with forestry, plentiful native plantings, vineyards, and their Pyramid Apiaries beehives. “We farm trees, bees, poos and wees”, Chris Dawkins told the judges in the 2019 Cawthron Marlborough Environment Awards, who awarded Pyramid the Supreme Award.
Waste not want not
It’s a far cry from the rundown property his late father Jack bought in 1954, alongside the Avon, Tummil and Waihopai rivers, with shoddy soil, scarce water, bedraggled fences and somewhat sickly stock. More than 65 years on, Pyramid stands as testament to the hard toil of Jack, Chris and his wife Julia, and of their four children, two of whom live and work on the land with their own families. Regenerated native bush flourishes along the Avon River, where the Dawkins have an 8ha QEII covenant, and native species have also been planted around dams, boosting biodiversity and protecting the soil. Mixed species forestry covers 15% of the farm, with pine, eucalypt, poplars, Californian redwoods, Tasmanian blackwood and other species used as shade for stock, as erosion control on steep country and around waterways, and for harvest on continuous rotation, while also supplying waste wood to a family-run firewood business. Judges in the Environment Awards commended Pyramid’s economically and environmentally viable operation, calling it a model for other farmers.
Winery waste monitoring has started and if you’re unsure of your reporting requirements, the Council’s monitoring team can help. Contact Rachel Neal about our winery waste monitoring programme, whether you operate under the permitted activity standards or a resource consent. Rachel Neal Monitoring Programme Co-ordinator
DDI: 03 520 7400 I M: 021 382 453 monitoring@marlborough.govt.nz
www.marlborough.govt.nz
20 / Winepress May 2020
