Grapes to gold

If you know your wine, you’ll know of champion winemaker Matt Connell. With his varietals consistently scoring top marks, gold medals and trophies from judges both here and overseas, it would seem anything in a bottle Connell has had a hand in producing is defi nitely worth seeking out and savouring.

Recognition. It should be Matt Connell’s middle name. The number of plaudits the winemaker has received over the last 15 years is, frankly, staggering when you list them all. But the thing about Connell is how selfeffacing he is – about his achievements and about the hard work that goes into producing award-winning wines. He mentions his Winemaker of Show trophies (awarded at the 2021 New Zealand International Wine Show) almost as an afterthought. But then, while recognition certainly is nice, it becomes clear in conversation with Connell that it’s what’s in the bottle that counts.

“I don’t think there are a whole lot of secrets in winemaking. The wine you taste is the wine you’re getting, and there aren’t too many tricks that have gone into making it. It’s just dedication and a willingness to learn, to adapt, that has made it what it is,” he says. “If I’m honest, I really can’t get onboard with all the smoke and mirrors associated with winemaking. Everyone tastes differently and having conversations with people about the wine and what they’re tasting is the fun part.”

There are certainly plenty of wines worth talking about in Connell’s back catalogue. A contract winemaker for brands such as Nevis Bluff and Three Miners, Connell has also made his mark with his own varietals under the Matt Connell Wines banner. Two years after launching the brand, his ‘Rendition’ Pinot Noir won both Champion Pinot Noir and overall Champion Wine of Show at the 2018 New Zealand International Wine Show.

With around 2,500 wines routinely entered, the New Zealand International Wine Show is the preeminent local wine competition. “It’s an important event because people tend to get really comfortable with a certain brand or vineyard and just blindly stick with it. They’ll lock into a brand and never go off the beaten path – Kiwis are terrible for that. There are some stunning wines in this country that aren’t as well known as they should be, but the smaller producers find it tough to shout over the top of the big names and that’s actually a disservice to consumers. So yes, the Wine Show helps open up the conversation for those smaller producers which is important.”

Wines Connell produces for clients are similarly lauded. His 2024 Nevis Bluff Pinot Noir and Holdsworth Reserve were both awarded Double Gold at the 2025 New Zealand International Wine Show, where only six double golds were awarded out of 183 pinot noirs to be awarded a gold, silver or bronze medal. Other Pinot Noirs he produces have won the Champion Pinot Noir Trophy at the New Zealand International Wine Show six times over the last 13 vintages.

Perhaps most significantly, last year another Pinot Noir produced for a client won the Pinot Noir Trophy at the Decanter World Wine Awards. Undisputably the world’s most prestigious wine awards, the 2024 competition saw a mindboggling 18,000 entries submitted, with Connell coming out on top. Not bad for the boy from Canterbury who left high school to complete a Parks and Recreation degree and has pulled beers – as much as he has poured wines – all over the world in that most traditional of Kiwi manner. 

“I think my strength as a winemaker comes from the fact I got into making wine because I had a love of it through hospitality. Combine that with a love of being outside in nature, and it’s something that, I suppose, feels innate to me as a job. “It might sound a bit counterintuitive to what people expect, but I think I built up my palate from drinking too much beer late at night,” he continues with a grin. “My palate is probably based around what people might term as more of a commercial palate. It’s pretty broad, but then I can also make really fine wine. At the end of the day, I like wine that people can drink. You know, ‘Wednesday night wine’ – that’s really important to me as a winemaker.

“Wine is all about adding to people’s enjoyment of life. Yes, winning awards is satisfying, but do you know what the biggest buzz I get is? If I go up to the Bannockburn Hotel or somewhere like that with the family, and I look over and see a group of people with a bottle of our wine on their table and they’re having a great night and there’s laughing and carrying on – well, that’s fantastic. That’s success. Because you’ve hoped for the best result and you’re sharing that result with people.”

Earning a Postgraduate Diploma in Viticulture and Oenology, Connell, alongside his wife Beth, then spent many years working in vineyards in South Australia and Oregon (“The best place for Pinot other than New Zealand,” he affirms) and traveling the world before moving back to New Zealand to work for several high-profile wineries. Highlights include helping winemaker Michelle Richardson set up Peregrine Wines in 2003, and successful stints with Olssens Wines, Akaroa Wines and others.

With its consistent climate, which is perfect for Pinot Noir, Connell has made Cromwell in Central Otago his base of operations – and Pinot Noir his specialty – for the past few years. Reinvesting in a small existing familyrun winery by improving infrastructure and adding the all-important cellar door, Matt Connell Wines has taken the site from processing around 20 tons of fruit each year to approximately 400 tons.

“Pinot Noir can be a really tricky grape, but it brings rewards with the challenges. Generally, here in Central we have warm days followed by cool evenings when the air flows down from the ranges. That helps retain freshness and acidity in the fruit. The schistbased soil we have here also contributes to the minerality of our wine, which is very specific to the region.

“Again though, I love being outdoors and being a winemaker, you take a lot of notice of the seasons. Everything has a stage throughout the year and it’s all very rhythmical. But also, it’s never predictable – you can’t get comfortable. You have to continually adjust how you do things, and you learn something new every year.”

Connell says the thing he loves most about making wine is its subjectivity – that no one can be wrong. “A customer might come up to one of our tastings at the cellar door and say, ‘Oh yeah, I’m getting a blueberry taste from this one’, and I’m thinking to myself ‘Really? I don’t get that at all’. But maybe it’s in there and it’s just that I’m not tasting it. Those conversations are really useful to me though – it makes me look at the wine a bit deeper.”

He also believes New Zealand’s wine industry has never been stronger than it currently is. But, as ever with the subtleties of the grape, with the uncertainties of a changing climate, and with the expectations of the consumer, there’s always room for improvement.

“The Kiwi wine industry is full of great stories, but we have to do a better job of telling those stories. Increasingly, people want to know where the wine they’re buying comes from, and who makes it. You can say the same about locally produced meat or cheese. People like to know the story behind the product, and we should be encouraging that. That’s certainly what we like to do – it’s a work in progress. But then, that’s what wine always is too – a work in progress.”