Hailing from a line of vignerons, Sam Neill has wine in his veins
This is not a celebrity side-hustle. Sam Neill isn’t Brad Pitt. Not Kylie Minogue. Nor is he Jon Bon Jovi, Jay-Z, Sting or even Cliff Richard. He’s a vigneron to his core.
It was inevitable that actor Sam Neill would end up peddling booze. He just got a little sidetracked on the way. Neill’s great grandfather arrived in Otago the same year gold was discovered, 1861, and intuitively knew the best way to make money from a goldrush was not with pick and shovel but with the liquids soothing those wielding them. The family firm, Neill & Co, became a major player in New Zealand and by the time Neill’s father returned to the business after a distinguished military career, Neill & Co was, among other things, the producer of New Zealand’s biggest selling brandy. “It was called Beehive Brandy and Dad always said the key to its popularity was pronunciation,” Neill explains. “It was a lot easier for Kiwis to ask for Beehive than Courvoisier.”
Acting ambitions may have taken the young Sam away from Neill & Co but they also lured him deeper into the thrall of the product. Living in London in the 1980s was a matter of right place and right time for a man deepening his love of wine. He even had Captain Nemo show him the way. A bottle of red Burgundy at dinner with James Mason kickstarted Neill’s passionate pursuit of pinot noir. Increasing success brought better bottles. In 1993 serious success brought an escalation.
In the same year he made Jurassic Park, Neill purchased 2ha in Central Otago’s Gibbston Valley and planted pinot noir. Film director Roger Donaldson did the same with an adjoining block and the plan was to have a label together they would call, prosaically, Two Paddocks. Donaldson pulled the pin early, but Neill ploughed on. That first vineyard was joined by three more, and what was initially a bit of fun became something really substantial. The fact Two Paddocks is really four is just one way most people only get half the story. This is not, and never has been, a celebrity side-hustle. By his own admission Sam Neill isn’t Brad Pitt. By general acclaim he’s not Kylie Minogue. Nor is he Jon Bon Jovi, Jay-Z, Sting or even Cliff Richard. He’s a vigneron to his core, an integral part of one of the most dynamic winemaking communities on the planet and another in a long line of Neills who understood all the artistry in the world can be found in a glass.
TWO PADDOCKS ‘THE FIRST PADDOCK’ PINOT NOIR 2021
$120
The cornerstone wine for Two Paddocks, sourced from the original 25 rows of pinot noir planted in 1993. An array of fragrant spices through a compote of dark berries and black cherries. A good whack of whole bunches in the ferment delivers an intriguing seam of scruffy funk.
12.5% alcohol, 94 points
TWO PADDOCKS ‘THE FUSILIER’ PINOT NOIR 2021
$120
A nod to Sam’s father, Dermot, a major in the Royal Irish Fusiliers, from a site at the end of the famed Felton Road in Bannockburn. Pinot noir in hero mode: muscular, surefooted, firm. Dark berries, hung game and dried herbs strewn across rocky hillsides. Plush, precise, beautifully fine.
13.5% alcohol, 95 points
TWO PADDOCKS ‘THE LAST CHANCE’ PINOT NOIR 2021
$120
From an elevated site in Earnscleugh, this wine more than matches the beauty of its birthplace with drama in the glass. Red and black berries, wild herb and dried flowers explode from the glass; the palate ripples with dark, fleshy fruit and tapers to a sustained finished shaped by gravelly tannins.
12.5% alcohol, 96 points
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