Meet Winemaker, Mary Schneier

Originally from Saint Louis, Missouri, USA and having worked in the California wine industry, Mary Schneier first joined Wairau River in 2016. She’s passionate about Chardonnay and has an incredible talent for making it. Mary’s beyond delighted with the newly released 2023 Wairau River Reserve Chardonnay. Originally joining the Wairau River team to work in the lab for vintage, Mary returned in 2017 for what she thought was going to be just another harvest, but ended up staying on full time as a lab assistant and cellar hand. Mary says “I had no idea that a few years later I would be making the Chardonnay and running the lab”.

Alongside the awards for our Wairau River Chardonnays, the team here recently celebrated another special achievement with Mary – her New Zealand residency! In our interview below, she told us Marlborough definitely feels like home. Mary’s winemaking talent is abundantly clear, not only to us lucky enough to see her working her craft, but to anyone who tastes the perfectly balanced wines that result. Mary’s tip is that the ’23 Reserve Chardonnay is tasting amazing now, but if you have the patience to let it age, you’ll be rewarded.

On the week of the 2023 Reserve Chardonnay release, we asked Mary a few questions about what led to her love of Chardonnay and how she’s enjoying life as a Kiwi:

What inspired your passion for Chardonnay?
My first vintage ever was at Hanzell Vineyards and the following year I worked at Paul Hobbs Winery. During my first vintage at Hanzell, I was lucky enough to be included in a vertical tasting of their 2004-2013 Chardonnays. This was when I fell in love with Chardonnay, and I’ve been trying to make age-able expressions of Chardonnay here in Marlborough ever since.

What is particularly special about the 2023 Reserve Chardonnay?
The 2023 growing season was fantastic, with smaller yields and a warm dry summer which were perfect for aroma and flavour concentration. This allowed us to pick each block at optimal ripeness, and each parcel looked outstanding from the juice stage all the way through barrel maturation. When I selected the 15 barrels for this blend in January, the wines showed an intense richness and integrated the oak better than I had seen in previous years. Because of this, the 2023 Reserve has 10% more new oak than the 2022 Reserve. After the wine came out of barrel, it spent another four months maturing on light lees in stainless steel before its bottling earlier this month

How do you enjoy living in Marlborough?
After growing up in landlocked Missouri, it’s incredible to be living in a place so close to both mountains and the sea. The beautiful scenery here never gets old.  I love working in Marlborough because of how kind and collaborative everyone is. I didn’t know anyone when I first set foot in New Zealand, but after 7 years in the industry here, it feels like home.