Deep Down Wines, Marlborough
California and Washington DC regional sales only
| Country & Region | Marlborough, New Zealand |
| Producer | Clive Dougall & Peter Lorimer |
| Founded | 2019 |
| Website | www.deepdownwines.co.nz |
Peter Lorimer and Clive Dougall are two men in their forties who have spent their adult lives in wine. Peter became a wine aficionado at an early age, leading to a sommelier career, which in turn led to him creating a company to broker his own book of producers that he proudly and steadfastly promoted in the UK and US markets. Clive, an Englishman, took a job as assistant wine maker at the Seresin Winery, New Zealand’s most prominent biodynamic producer, and two weeks later found himself promoted to head winemaker and then viticulturist. Subsequently, with each harvest he oversaw 30-odd Sauvignon Blanc ferments along with 50-odd Pinot Noir ferments without yeast or acid additions, typically raising the wine without finings or filtrations. This evolved into making Pinot without SO2 additions. He did that for twelve years. Then he met Peter.
They discovered that they both had daughters named Chloe. They both wanted to start their own winery. And they wanted to be authentic, as in working with completely transparent practices, organic and biodynamic methods, and using next to zero additives—all while making solidly delicious wine rather than weirdly funky stuff. They wanted to break the mold, and with a handful of other producers this is happening in New Zealand, but still only–only–6 or 7% of all vineyards in the country are farmed organically. Peter and Clive are fighting the good fight on a David and Goliath scale, going up against a very well-entrenched New Zealand industrial model, and that’s a big mold to break. It has been made no easier by the fact that they didn’t have the financial resources to start a vineyard, let alone buy one, or to build a winery.
But upon mortgaging their houses, they came up with enough to buy grapes. These came from three organic growers in the 2019 vintage. Clive is the president of Organic Winegrowers New Zealand (OWNZ), and he knows the growers well. Below is the Populars Vineyard on harvest day.
In their first vintage of 2019, Peter and Clive made 1,500 heartfelt cases. In 2023, they officially transitioned their business into a B Corp. Why is this important? Eric Asimov can tell you all about it here.
The Wines
| Wine | Blend | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Pinot Noir | Pinot Noir | This comes from four acres in the Poplars Vineyard planted to clone 10/5, a.k.a., the Wadenswil clone, well known in Oregon and first brought to New Zealand from Switzerland in the early 1960s (released from NS quarantine in 1962). Soils are silt-clay over deep gravels, giving good drainage and enabling the grapes to retain good acidity. The vineyard lies at the base of the hills running along the south of the Marlborough region in the Brancott Valley. The grapes are hand-harvested, de-stemmed, allowed to ferment spontaneously, and the wine was aged 4 months in neutral 500-liter demi-muids (puncheons). No fining or filtration or SO2 additions; indeed, it’s just fermented grape juice, free of any additives. Tech sheet here. |
| Sauvignon Blanc | Sauvignon Blanc | Murray’s Vineyard, a ten-acre site planted in 1999 on silty-clay soils overtop of gravels, much like the Poplars Vineyard above, except it’s in Marlborough’s Wairau Valley. Like practically all NZ Sauvignon, this is harvested by machine, but unlike practically all of NZ Sauvignon, this is allowed to ferment spontaneously. Almost as unorthodox, 35% of this wine is raised in neutral 500-liter barrels for four months and allowed to undergo malolactic fermentation naturally, while the remainder is raised in steel and malo is kept at bay by cold temperature. The only SO2 addition given is done at bottling (less than 60/ppm, again, extremely uncommon in NZ). Tech sheet here. |