Central Otago’s dramatic landscape formed over millions of years. Tectonic activity pushed up the Southern Alps and compressed ancient seabeds into the schist bedrock that now underlies much of the region, creating soils rich in mica and quartz.

During the Ice ages, glaciers sculpted the land more visibly, leaving behind wide valleys, deep basins, braided rivers, fertile soils and stony terraces. The terrain we see today, places like the Cromwell Basin, the Upper Clutha, and the gorges of the Clutha/Mata-Au, was carved out by ice and water, forming the foundations for everything that followed.

Central Otago was part of a seasonal rhythm for Māori iwi (Ngāi Tahu, and their predecessors Waitaha and Ngāti Māmoe) who ventured inland from coastal settlements to hunt, gather food, and retrieve precious resources. The region’s dry basins, rivers, and alpine passes were traversed along ancient trails, linking places like Wānaka and the Clutha/Mata-Au, to the coast and the pounamu-rich West Coast. While the land’s harsh winters limited permanent settlement, Māori established temporary camps with a deeply rooted knowledge of the land.

The 1860s brought a different kind of migration: the gold rush, which transformed Central Otago almost overnight. Prospectors from across the globe poured into the region after the discovery of gold. Towns like Clyde, Arrowtown, and Cromwell sprang up, and the landscape was reshaped by dredges, sluices, and human ambition. In time, as the gold dwindled, many left, and the land quietened again until a new wave of pioneers saw promise not in gold but in grapes. 

The first vines in Central Otago were planted in the 1860s, notably by Frenchman Jean Désiré Féraud, who grew grapes and made wine near Clyde and Alexandra. Others followed, but early efforts struggled with the extreme climate and distance from markets. By the mid-20th century, viticulture had nearly disappeared. 

It wasn’t until the 1970s and ‘80s that a group of determined visionaries and dreamers – foundational figures such as Ann Pinckney, Verdun Burgess, Sue Edwards, Rolfe and Lois Mills, Alan Brady, and Bill and Sue Grant – began experimenting again. They recognised the region’s unique combination of high altitude, dry summers, cool nights, and mineral-rich soils could produce exceptional wines.

By the 1990s, Central Otago had earned a reputation for world-class wines, particularly Pinot Noir. The 1987 release of the first commercial Pinot Noir from Gibbston Valley marked a turning point. In 1991, a Central Otago Pinot Noir took top honours at the inaugural International Pinot Noir Celebration in New Zealand. Vineyards spread across Bannockburn, Gibbston, the Cromwell Basin, and the Upper Clutha, transforming the landscape once shaped by glaciers and gold pans. The rest, one might say, is history; it’s not. It’s the present; the present shaped by what’s come before, with an eye and open mind to what lies ahead. It’s the people, the places, the climate, the soils and the commitment to growing wines in a region that was once dismissed as being too extreme for viticulture; the same region that’s now synonymous with world-class wines.