Yoshiaki Sato came to Central Otago, New Zealand, about 13 years ago to live his dream with his wife, Kyoko, to make beautiful wines. Both gave up their successful international banking careers based in London to learn about and make fine wines on the hillsides of Lake Dunstan, a rugged and isolated area near the small town of Cromwell.
“We still have problems, but I am feeling we are lucky now and we survived this moment,” Sato said as we tasted about a half dozen of his handmade, minimum intervention wines in his simple, modern winery surround by his six hectares of vineyards planted mostly with pinot noir but also gamay, riesling, chenin blanc and chardonnay. Kyoko had just come in from a long day of training the vines. Her faced looked flush from the pure, ice cold wind coming off the volcanic mountains. They both do all the work in their vineyards and winery and make 30,000 bottles on their own. “I give thanks to everything," Sato said. "We make what I believe are nice wines. We have to look forward to the future and hold our faces high."
A few hours before the meeting with Sato, Nick Mills was walking through his pristine 15 hectares of vineyards in Central Otago on the shores of Lake Wanaka, which was formed during the ice age though glacial erosion. His winery, Rippon, is about a 45-minute drive from Sato. Mills and his family can date their origins as landowners and farmers back to 1912, when his grandfather Percy Mills came to Central Otago from Australia and bought a massive homestead, called Wanaka Station. Today it’s a tiny fraction of the size but it's etched deep in the hearts of his family.