Fromm Winery

When Georg Fromm bought land in Marlborough's Wairau Valley in 1990, the region was racing in one direction. Cloudy Bay's 1985 Sauvignon Blanc had detonated on the international market, and almost every new planting in the valley was being aimed at the same target. Fromm, a fourth-generation winemaker from Malans in the Swiss canton of Graubünden, looked at the same ground and saw something completely different. He saw a cool-climate Pinot Noir vineyard. He saw Syrah. He saw Malbec. He saw the kind of European, vineyard-driven wines he had grown up with in Switzerland's Bündner Herrschaft, where Pinot Noir is taken as seriously as it is in Burgundy. Fromm partnered with Hätsch Kalberer, another Swiss winemaker who had been working in Gisborne since 1982, and the two set out to prove that Marlborough was capable of far more than aromatic whites. The first vintage came off in 1992. Within a decade, Fromm was producing what many critics considered the most ambitious and age-worthy Pinot Noir in New Zealand.

• First vines planted 1990; debut vintage January 1992
• Georg Fromm: fourth-generation winemaker from Malans, canton Graubünden, Switzerland
• Hätsch Kalberer: Swiss winemaker who had been working in Gisborne since 1982
• Founded with an explicit focus on Pinot Noir, Syrah, and Malbec rather than Sauvignon Blanc
• Modeled on European single-vineyard tradition, particularly the Bündner Herrschaft and Burgundy

Fromm has farmed organically from the beginning and was BioGro certified across the estate in 2005, making it one of the earliest certified organic producers in Marlborough. The certification was an outcome rather than a marketing position. Kalberer and the team had been working with cover crops, compost, and natural pest management since the first vines went in, and biodynamic principles such as soil-building preparations and lunar-calendar timing were progressively layered in over the years. The bigger statement, in a region where most vineyards drip-irrigate from the Wairau aquifer, is dry farming. A substantial share of the Fromm estate carries no irrigation, forcing roots downward and producing small, concentrated berries that hold their acidity through the warm Marlborough summer. The practice saves an enormous amount of water each year and gives the wines an unusual density and structural intensity for the region. Soils across the four estate sites combine alluvial gravel with bands of clay and silt, providing the natural drainage that makes dry farming viable in the first place.

• BioGro certified organic across the estate since 2005
• Biodynamic principles layered in progressively; not formally Demeter certified
• Substantial portion of vineyards dry-farmed with no irrigation, unusual for Marlborough
• Soils: alluvial gravel over clay and silt; natural drainage supports dry farming
• Cover crops, compost, and natural pest management used since the first vintage

Fromm farms roughly 23 hectares across four estate sites in and around the Wairau Valley: the home Fromm Vineyard on Godfrey Road, the William Thomas Vineyard, the Quarters Vineyard, and the Clayvin Vineyard in the Brancott Valley. Clayvin is the famous one and the strange one. The site was planted in 1991 by viticulturist Mike Eaton on a north-facing hillside at the head of the Brancott Valley, the first commercial hillside Pinot Noir vineyard in Marlborough. Eaton had been inspired by Burgundy's hillside, high-density model, and he chose the slope precisely because its heavier clay-rich soils, sheltered aspect, and sunlight intensity were unlike anything on the valley floor. Fromm contracted Clayvin grapes from the early days and cemented the vineyard's reputation through the late 1990s and 2000s with its single-vineyard Clayvin Pinot Noir. Giesen leased the vineyard in 2013 and purchased it outright in 2015. Fromm continues to source from Clayvin under long-running grower contracts, and the Clayvin Vineyard Pinot Noir and Clayvin Vineyard Chardonnay remain pillars of the range. Beyond Pinot, Fromm grows Syrah, Malbec, Chardonnay, Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, and Sauvignon Blanc. The single-vineyard Malbec planting is the oldest in the country.

• Four estate vineyards: Fromm (home), Clayvin, William Thomas, and Quarters
• Clayvin Vineyard planted 1991 by Mike Eaton; first commercial hillside Pinot Noir site in Marlborough
• Fromm built Clayvin's reputation through the late 1990s; Giesen acquired ownership in 2015
• Fromm continues to bottle a Clayvin Vineyard Pinot Noir and Chardonnay under grower contract
• Houses New Zealand's oldest single-vineyard Malbec planting
• Also grows Syrah, Riesling, Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, and Sauvignon Blanc

Inside the winery, Fromm's approach is patient and additive-minimal. Grapes are hand-picked and sorted, fermentations run on wild yeasts, and reds typically spend 14 to 16 months in French oak with new wood kept below 10 percent so that vineyard character carries through. Wines are bottled without fining or filtration. The result is a portfolio that tastes more like a Cote de Nuits producer than a Marlborough cellar: red-fruited rather than confected, savory rather than sweet, and built to age. The range is organised in three tiers. The La Strada label is the entry to the house style, sourced across the estate and aimed at drinkability. Single-vineyard wines, led by Clayvin Vineyard Pinot Noir and Clayvin Vineyard Chardonnay, are the heart of the lineup. At the top sits Cuvee H, a small-production Pinot Noir reserve named in honor of Hätsch Kalberer and selected from the best barrels of the vintage. Kalberer retired in 2024 after 34 consecutive vintages, an exceptionally long tenure in New Zealand winemaking. Ownership and direction continue under Swiss investor Pol Lenzinger and partner Stephan Walliser, who have led the estate since Georg and Ruth Fromm returned to Switzerland in 2008. The estate was placed on the market in 2025.

• Hand-picking, sorting, wild-yeast fermentation, no fining, no filtration
• Reds typically 14-16 months in French oak; less than 10 percent new wood
• La Strada: entry-tier estate blends; single-vineyard wines: Clayvin and others; Cuvee H: top Pinot Noir reserve
• Cuvee H named for winemaker Hätsch Kalberer, who retired in 2024 after 34 vintages
• Owners since 2008: Swiss investors Pol Lenzinger and Stephan Walliser
• Estate placed on the market in 2025

Fromm matters because it changed the conversation about Marlborough. Before Fromm, the region was viewed, internationally, as a one-grape phenomenon. Fromm and a handful of contemporaries proved that the Southern Valleys and the cooler hillside sites could produce serious Pinot Noir, and that organic, dry-farmed, single-vineyard wines could find a market alongside the volume Sauvignon Blanc trade. The estate's bottlings, particularly from Clayvin, helped Marlborough land on serious Pinot Noir lists in London, New York, and Tokyo, and they remain among the most cited New Zealand reds in critical retrospectives of region's evolution. Production has stayed deliberately small at roughly 4,000 to 7,000 cases per year, the wines have steadily accumulated 90 plus scores from international critics, and Fromm is consistently named among the country's top wineries by The Real Review and other panels. As the founding generation steps back, the next chapter will be written by new ownership, but the template Fromm built, organic, dry-farmed, single-vineyard, age-worthy, remains the benchmark for ambitious Marlborough red wine.

• First Marlborough producer to focus exclusively on single-vineyard wines
• Widely credited with establishing Marlborough's international Pinot Noir reputation
• Production held to roughly 4,000-7,000 cases per year
• Consistently ranked among New Zealand's top wineries by The Real Review
• Clayvin Vineyard wines among the most age-worthy reds produced in Marlborough