Peter Yealands

Ideas man, wine producer and environmentalist

August the 8th, 2008 is a momentous day that Peter Yealands looks back on with fond memories. After years of developing his seaside property in Marlborough, Yealands Estate Winery was officially open for business.

With the opening achieved, Yealands next set his sights on three clear goals: To be in the top handful of wine producers in New Zealand; to have made the best sauvignon blanc in the world; and to be the world’s most sustainable wine maker. It was ambitious, but the wine novice and self-confessed “Jack of all trades and master of none” had only one response: “Never say it can’t be done.”

It’s the mantra Yealands has always lived by. “Anyone who says something can’t be done obviously hasn’t tried,” he says. “I have always been an ideas man, and where I can I will put those ideas into practice. I’m not scared of failure. What I don’t like is failing twice. You learn ‘til the day you die.”

Yealands’ drive to succeed and lead the way in innovation and sustainable business practice is what motivates him every day. “That’s why I’ve done a hell of a lot of things, because when I think I’ve beaten a challenge I’ll look for another one. I can’t help myself, it’s part of my genetics,” he says.

Yealands, 67, bought his Awatere Valley property in Blenheim at the north eastern tip of New Zealand’s South Island after falling in love with the rolling foothills and incredible sea views. But the site’s landscape was considered to be unsuitable for grape growing. “I must have had some inner confidence; I’d find a way,” he says. Yealands struck up a relationship with a Kiwi researcher at the US-based GPS company Trimble, and together the pair introduced the software to New Zealand that started viticulture in New Zealand on a big scale. With insights from the technology, Yealands began re-contouring the land, filling ravines, smoothing gullies, terracing hills, and he then planted his first diverse variety of grapes. Everything was done with the purpose of being as sustainable as possible.

Sustainability hasn’t always been at the forefront of Yealands’ business mantra. But he credits his transformation to environmentalist as coming from the life lessons and realisations he has had over the past three decades.

“I spent a lot of my younger years chopping trees down and exporting them. But for seven years [prior to starting Yealands Estate] I went down and lived at my farm in the Marlborough Sounds. I learnt to live in harmony with nature, rather than destroy it, because that’s what I was invariably doing. I grew a love of the land and of nature, and with that comes sustainability and environmental awareness. When you have wood pigeons overdosing on nectar from your kowhai trees on your front lawn, and you’d go to pick them up and sit them on their feet and they’d fall over again, that’s pretty unique. You realise then that there’s another world out there. Since then, I’ve tried to do everything as environmentally-friendly as possible, across all of my business.”

True to the company slogan ‘Think boldly, tread lightly, never say it can’t be done’, in September 2016 Yealands Estate unveiled the country’s largest solar power initiative (see page 20).

It only took four years for the Yealands Estate Single Block 21 Sauvignon Blanc to be named the world’s best at the International Wine Challenge in 2012. But early and continuous success doesn’t keep Yealands and his team from striving to be better. “Sometimes I wish I could relax for a wee bit, but then as soon as I do for 10 minutes I’m thinking about the next thing. It’s just the way I am. I won’t change.”