The Awatere Valley was formed by the colossal forces of ancient glaciers and the tectonic movement of the Pacific plate crashing into the Australasian plate. As the ice age ended, the glaciers left a giant gouge in the mountains of the northern South Island. This has resulted in many soil structures across the length and breadth of the valley, one of the most distinctive being the combination of grey clay and limestone called Grey Marl. The active seismic nature of the valley left an enormous amount of rock debris on the valley floor.
People
Early Polynesian peoples hunted the giant moa, an extinct bird distantly related to the emu, in the valley between 800AD and 1200AD. They settled in the Wairau Valley to the north, and on the coast to the south, but the very low rainfall of the region meant that they could not settle in the Awatere as their staple food of sweet potato was not a reliable crop. Around 1820, European settlers began to farm sheep and by 1838 a small community was thriving in the eastern end of the valley.
In 1848 a huge earthquake devastated the fledgling community, but the early pioneers were made of very stern stuff, and continued to graze sheep and cattle. For years, life remained pretty much the same until the viticultural potential of the valley was realised in the 1990s.
The Awatere Valley was formed by the colossal forces of ancient glaciers and the tectonic movement of the Pacific plate crashing into the Australasian plate. As the ice age ended, the glaciers left a giant gouge in the mountains of the northern South Island. This has resulted in many soil structures across the length and breadth of the valley, one of the most distinctive being the combination of grey clay and limestone called Grey Marl. The active seismic nature of the valley left an enormous amount of rock debris on the valley floor.