From private vineyard concertos to the precious “Butterfly Gully,” chief winemaker Natalie Christensen and her team at Yealands Wines put a revolutionary spin on environmental stewardship in New Zealand’s Awatere Valley.
She’s an academic with multiple degrees, including a Master of Science. She’s a classically trained double bass violinist. She spent a few years as a firefighter. She’s also been honored with a raft of professional kudos.
A few years ago, she was called one of the World’s Most Influential Women in Wine by The Drinks Business. And in 2023, she won White Winemaker of the Year at the International Wine Challenge — becoming the first New Zealander to receive the award in 15 years.
Natalie Christensen is, by anyone’s measure, a true Renaissance Woman — and as chief winemaker for Yealands, she’s helping shape an incredibly colorful narrative for the future of this already-pioneering estate in New Zealand’s Marlborough region.“It’s been a long and windy road, that’s for sure,” Christensen says. She smiles as we settle in for our interview. Famously a lover of color, she’s sporting a festive, multi-hued manicure.
“Way back when, I wanted to be a composer of music for New Zealand films. As I was working toward my music degree, I became interested in music therapy, so I also picked up my psychology degree.”
As she studied for her Master of Science in industrial organizational psychology — while also working as a firefighter and as a server in a wine bar — the inspiration for “what’s next” remained a bit elusive.
“That’s when I had my quarter-life crisis,” she laughs. “I took a job working in human resources, but I wasn’t enjoying it. I did learn that I wanted to be creating something, though. I didn’t want to work in a support function. I wanted to be hands on. But I had no idea what I wanted to do exactly.”
In 2006, Christensen traveled to visit her brother in Marlborough and wound up working a harvest at Saint Clair Family Estates.
“I didn’t even know what ‘harvest’ was, really,” she laughs. “But I loved it. I was living out of a suitcase, wearing ratty old T-shirts and shorts, and I loved it. I remember thinking, ‘Okay, so this wine thing can be a career!’”
Christensen excelled in this new, vinous arena and was named Saint Clair’s assistant winemaker just a short time later. She also re-donned her academic robes and began pursuing her graduate degree in oenology. Stints at New Zealand’s Matahiwi Winery and in Spain’s Rías Baixas region followed before she landed at Yealands in 2014. She became their chief winemaker in 2019.
Perched near the edge of the ocean in southern Marlborough’s Awatere Valley (so close that the vines are often misted with sea spray), Yealands produces a uniquely nuanced version of the classic New Zealand sauvignon blanc you may be familiar with — less overtly tropical and more elegantly mineral-driven with the same cheek-pinching verve fans of the style love.
In fact, in true pioneer fashion, Yealands disproved a long-held theory that the Awatere wasn’t suited to wine grape growing. And, back in 2008, they were the first-ever winery to be certified carbon-neutral upon opening. Carbon-neutral status remains a distinction held by only a handful of wineries around the world. Sixteen years later, becoming one of the world’s most sustainable wine producers remains a core goal. “A partnership with nature,” as they call it — a philosophy that’s proudly on display in all corners of their business.
From the massive, 1,300-panel solar installation on the winery roof (one of New Zealand’s largest) to the trio of wind turbines that harness the winds whistling in off the Pacific, nearly every operational facet of Yealands runs on green energy. They even employ specially designed burners to convert their vine prunings into energy used for heating water — offsetting up to 161 tons of CO2 per year.
“At Yealands, ‘green’ has been a part of our ethos since the very beginning,” says Christensen. “We’re constantly looking at what more we can do to keep up with changing technologies to make sure we’re always keeping ahead.”
In 2022, Yealands became the first New Zealand winery to join International Wineries for Climate Action and also launched an expansive, 30-year biodiversity plan. Phase one is already complete and saw the restoration of a natural waterway on the property. They undertook this project even though they needed to remove sections of vineyards to do it.
Let’s also not forget the estate’s thriving monarch butterfly population. Yealands’ “Butterfly Gully” is tucked a bit inland and sheltered from harsh, oceanic winds. Over 200 native swan plants, put in the ground by the estate over the last few years, add another dimension of biodiversity. (Butterfly Gully recently caught the attention of the Moths and Butterflies Trust of New Zealand, who recognized Yealands as New Zealand’s first “Butterfly Friendly Organization.”)
With so much invested in the precious health of their vineyards and the Earth at large, it’s not a stretch to think that Yealands would go one more (albeit experimental) mile in the name of quality.
“I have always been interested in music therapy,” says Christensen. “And when I was at university, I did go to some workshops and things. But in 2019, I went to an ashram in India and did a meditation course. Part of it was chanting these mantras to get our bodies in the zone. It got me wondering, ‘What if I can marry mantra and my love of wine?’”
In 2021, Christensen got a chance to try it. She made Yealands’ single-vineyard pinot noir as normal, but when it was time for aging, the team separated the barrels, putting half of them in one hall and half in another.
“In one hall, I had the Gayatri Mantra playing for six months on repeat, 24/7, while the other wine was just aging in barrel in silence,” she says. “The Gayatri Mantra is meant to bring about oneness, peace, and purity. So, I hypothesized that the mantra wine would be more seamless, more together. Be pure and clean. The jury’s still out, though … before we could really assess any tangible differences, we wound up needing the whole lot for total production, so it ended up in a blend. But yeah, I still sort of play around with it.”
Chanting ancient mantras is one way to try and achieve balance, health, and purity in your wines. Here’s another: start in the vineyard with a Mozart concerto or two.
“There’s a lot of research out there showing that plants that are played classical music are healthier and have more vigor,” says Christensen. “We have solar-powered music stations dotting the property so you can drive around and hear strains of Mozart or Beethoven in different parts of the vineyards. It’s pretty cool.”
The team are still studying the actual effects the symphonic sounds have on vines and health of the grapes, but there is an early indication it’s having some kind of positive influence.
“There’s actually a chicken coop near one of those stations and the guys who collect the eggs have told me those eggs are bigger than the eggs from the other chicken coops,” says Christensen. “I haven’t seen them myself though, so don’t take my word for it just yet!”
It’s been a busy 16 years for Team Yealands — what do the next 16 hold? Christensen’s answer is just what you’d expect, having now come to the end of our interview:
“We’re really conscious now more than ever of looking forward to the future and thinking about climate change — because it’s something we can’t deny anymore.”
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