Forgotten Corners - Pyramid Farm

Forgotten Corners

Rolling with the bunches at Pyramid Farm

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.

From left, Chris, Julia, Jess, Ellie and Richard Dawkins. Photo Scott Hammond/Stuff

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.

Waste not want not

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



Pyramid already has a 50ha vineyard development, which is leased out, but the new development is another level of diversity for the farm, says Chris. “It helps in succession planning, with four sons all pretty passionate about the property. It also spreads your risk and ties in with our philosophy of making the best use of every land type.” The land set aside for grapes was productive for grazing sheep, but with limited financial returns, he says. While grapes offer better profits and opportunities for family employment, the development brief given to Richard Hunter was to ensure the vineyard was compatible with the livestock and forestry operations, and aligned with the family’s vision for Pyramid, including soil conservation.

Chris and Richard decided early on to avoid any recontouring of the rolling country, 250 metres above sea level. They studied aerial photos of Bordeaux, Burgundy and California, finding row orientation prescribed by the natural lay of the land, not governed by uniformity. That gave them further confidence in their plan, which has been able to progress slowly through the Covid-19 shutdown, with work such as constructing fencelines and drains considered part of the farming operation. Richard hopes to do more of the development this month, with the land ready for planting in August.

Following the land’s contours may have been an easy decision, but it made for a far more difficult task. Richard walked the site repeatedly over a two month period in the planning phase, moving markers each time to find the best line for vines and machinery. “I walked it as if I was basially driving a tractor,” he says. “That’s how we laid the blocks out, with each row’s orientation following the contour, so you can drive a tractor safely.” The end result looks like a jigsaw, he says of seven blocks he’s designed, none of them square, in an array of orientations, from north to south, east to west, northeast to southwest and northwest to southeast.

That plan protects the land and also offers a greater diversity of flavour profiles, says Richard. But it also requires careful canopy management, recognising the different levels of sun exposure on each block, and thought put into where the fruiting wire should be positioned on each. The development is also an opportunity to future proof against climate change, he says.

Irrigation submains will go beyond the rows and cross the headlands, in order to water beneath fence wires and enable native plantings. “On a traditional irrigation system you run to the final row and then stop. For the sake of an extra 11m we go to the fenceline and can run irrigation down it, which makes it much easier to plant natives.” They have worked with Marlborough irrigation company SWE to ensure the best irrigation solutions for the property, with subsurface irrigation at a depth that feeds vines but not weeds. “I am totally fed up with watering weeds,” says Richard. Any vineyards planted now need to be future proofed for the next 40 or 50 years, including ways of managing without herbicides, he adds. As well as reducing weed health, the subsurface irrigation will reduce water use and rid the vineyard of irrigation wires, enabling better undervine mowing. “But the main thing, and the biggest luxury I have, is I can open a gate and let in 500 or 800 sheep, and that is like gold.”

Richard and the Dawkins are working to develop a sheep system in the vineyards, with each of the seven blocks to be split into zones for grazing. The vineyard will use Eco Trellis steel posts, and they have asked the company to develop the capacity to clip sheep wires on, “so at certain times of the year we can let a lot of sheep into a small area for a day”, says Richard. The ovine grazing and leaf plucking won’t happen until year three, when the plants are well established, but the plan is part of the integration of vineyard and sheep farm. “Chris doesn’t get as excited about vines as he does about sheep,” says Richard with a laugh.

Luckily, he’s excited enough for both of them, talking of this complex operation as his “priority” project. “It challenges you in a lot of ways, but we are going to be planting vines in beautiful soils, so we are getting things off to a good start,” Richard says. “I will never get another chance like this.”

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