Akarua Winery consists of six vineyards all located down south in viticultural region Central Otago. The sites in Central Otago’s Bannockburn and Lowdburn cover 330 acres (135 hectares). Their reputation has strong beginnings with creating Pinot Noir and Sparking Wine, with the winery releasing its first vintage in 1999. Since Akarua Pinot Noir’s first trophy awarded in 2002 by Air New Zealand Wine Awards, a trophy has been awarded for each vintage since 2009 to date.
Akarua is an award-winning winery with highly rated wines. These include Akarua Vintage Brut 20111 which won the trophy for Champion Sparkling Wine at Romeo Bragato for the second year running. The complete Akarua portfolio now consists of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Rosé, Riesling and Sparkling Wine.
Originally the Skeggs family began their wine journey with a single vineyard, later obtaining new territory to total over 130 collective hectares. With such a large area of prized ground to continue producing award winning wines, it was easily seen that a greater irrigation control system was needed to ensure each of the six vineyards received what they needed most. Upkeep needed to be simple and maintenance made easy. Minimization of water wastage and the assurance that their vines would not be water-stressed were top of mind for the top Winery.
With an IRRInet wireless central control system, Akarua is able to monitor and adjust irrigation from a single point, saving power and water while ensuring that each plant has exactly what it needs. The system includes probes that record soil moisture and temperature. Providing the opportunity to externally adjust each of their six current vineyards was tailored exactly to their watering maintenance dilemma. Simple digital controls enabled Akarua Winery to check individual vine moisture levels and take back control.
Akarua continued to produce high quality wines with help from an extensive, highly intuitive irrigation control platform. Parkland Products oversaw the entire process and accurately recommended what was best to manage their large area and variety of wine growing sectors.
From Akarua Winery:
As an award winning winner we are determined to offer only the best every season, so controlling each of our vineyards with Parkland has mad life easy by helping us through efficient water management. Thank you Parkland Products" - Akarua Winery Member of Staff.
Parkland Products Ltd has sold 50% of its Australian subsidiary (Parkland Australia Pty Ltd) to MTI Wireless Edge Ltd, the owners of Mottech Water Solutions Ltd. Headquartered in Israel, MTI produces communication and radio frequency solutions across multiple sectors through...
