07/07/2026
Long before the first vine, this gorge was a highway for the most treasured stone in the Māori world.
Gibbston sits in the rohe of Ngāi Tahu — Kāi Tahu in the southern reo. The river that carved these schist walls, the Kawarau, takes its name from a channel between rocks. For centuries it was the main inland route between the Clutha (Mata-Au) and Lake Wakatipu, and part of the ancient trail network that carried pounamu, greenstone, between the West Coast and the settlements of the east.
At the heart of it was Whatatorere: a natural rock bridge where the Kawarau narrowed to barely more than a metre, the only place the rivers could be leapt without a boat. Māori crossed here for generations on the way to the West Coast greenstone. In the 1860s, gold miners used the very same crossing. And when the first European came through in 1853, he only made it because two Kāi Tahu chiefs, Reko and Kaikōura, guided him and floated him home on a mōkihi, a raft of bundled flax.
Pounamu. Then gold. And since the 1980s, a third treasure grown on these same slopes: Central Otago Pinot Noir.
The same schist that made this the one place to cross is the cold-climate rock that now gives the wine its acidity and lift. One valley. One river. Three treasures.
Every sip has a story. This one began long before the vines.
With respect to Ngāi Tahu, the mana whenua of this land.
Queenstown NZWine Aotearoa
