Pinot Noir Workshop speaker

2008 NZSVO workshop

Getting to grips with Pinot Noir - a look at Pinot Noir tannin management

Speaker Profile

Belinda Gould

Viticulturist & Winemaker, Muddy Water, Waipara

Winemaker Belinda Gould is a viticulturist first and winemaking "just follows on". When Belinda left Lincoln University with her Diploma of Horticulture in 1979 she had already decided that grapes were an ideal crop for her "native" Waipara and she needed to know more. Belinda spent 2 years as a guest student at the Geisenheim viticulture school in Germany, with Professor Helmut Becker, before returning to New Zealand to work with Dr Richard Smart (the grape canopy guru) at Ruakura.

After some time away she returned to the wine industry in 1993 as assistant winemaker at Waipara Springs. A growing love of Pinot Noir took her to California for the 1996 harvest at Calera Wine Co. (one of California's leading Pinot producers). She then went on to Oregon where she worked the Pinot harvest at Cristom Vineyards (a small, quality producer). After returning to NZ, Belinda was offered the winemaker's position at Calera - so it was back to California for another 3 years. A family decision that Waipara, NZ was the place to live coincided with a job offer as winemaker/viticulturist for Muddy Water when the winery was built in 2000. Belinda worked on a Pinot Noir experimental project for Sonoma Cutrer Vineyards in California’s Russian River Valley in 2000 and 2001. While she has plans for overseas harvests in the future these will probably be for shorter periods, as an observer, as Muddy Water's production has grown along with Belinda’s vegetable garden.