Mission Statement
Mercury Bay Estate is a boutique, family owned vineyard. Our aim is to produce Coromandel’s finest wines using sustainable means.
We wish to share these wines with local food to both locals and visitors to the region in our relaxed and family friendly vineyard and cellar door setting.
The Mercury Bay's rugged coastline covers some 20km of the eastern Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand. Named after James Cooks voyage of 1769, where under orders of his country, he anchored not far from Cooks Beach in the safe harbour to observe the Transit of Mercury on November 9th 1769, while his ship Endeavour took on fresh provisions.
Mercury Bay Estate is owned by John and Lorraine Donelley and was formed from the vineyard established by Alex Morcom in 1996 (named Shakespeare Cliff Vineyard and later spawned Cooks Beach Vineyard). The vineyard originally contained plantings of Merlot, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay & Sauvignon Blanc.
The vineyard, of course, took its original name from one of the landmarks in the area, the stunning Shakespeare Cliff. Other well known attractions such as Hot Water Beach, Hahei and Cathedral Cove are close by. There's also a well known marine reserve in the bay which attracts many divers.
The subdivision of the vineyard occured in 2004 with each variety being established as a separate viticulture block, with ourselves, John & Lorraine Donelley, purchasing the Pinot Noir block purely as an ideal location to live and enjoy the beauty of this wonderful location. Suitably (for us) the Pinot Noir wine produced from this block was our personal favourite. After much debate and with no experience in viticulture we decided to take on the challenge of operating this small vineyard and we produced our first vintage in 2006 under the Cooks Beach Vineyard label.
As we have developed over the past 5 years it has become apparent that we should encourage tourists and locals to enjoy our location and its fruits. This was a compelling driver in the decision to create the MERCURY BAY ESTATE brand.
We can now offer a cellar door where locals and tourists can come and relax and enjoy the beauty we are so fortunately surrounded by, while tasting some of our wines, together with platters of local food, and for those whom enjoy a beer we provide the local beers produced by the Coromandel brewing Company.
Our current range of wines include varieties produced from fruit grown on our vineyards at Cooks Beach and from vineyards at Hawkes Bay.
|
