Our Story
Our Team
At Nautilus we like to keep things simple so we have a small (and friendly!) team. A small team means everyone can be fully involved in the winemaking from start to finish. It also means Clive, our winemaker, can spend his time in the winery making wine rather than managing a large team of people. It is a pretty hands-on approach.
Our Winery
Great winery facilities mean that we can pick our grapes when they are ripe rather than being governed by logistics and we have a great deal of control over things like the amount of extraction (the colour and flavour) we get out of the grape skins.
Our Family
Family ownership means we have the benefit of generations of experience through the highs and lows of wine-growing – our owner Robert Hill Smith is a fifth-generation vigneron – and also means that we take a long-term, cautious approach. We only make a change if we are really, really convinced it adds to the quality of what we do.
Our Philosophy
This philosophy is shared by our ‘brothers and sisters’ in the Family of Twelve. This is a group of 12 family-owned wineries that represents a selection of great wines from each of NZ’s winegrowing regions. We are extremely proud to be part of this group and enjoy sharing ideas and time with our extended family!
Our Winemaking
You can find more information about our winemaking and viticulture throughout this website, however feel free to drop us a line if you can’t find the information you are looking for – we will do our best to help!
Our energetic and innovative viticultural and winemaking team takes the approach of blending several different fruit parcels to achieve layers of complexity in the wines, focusing on their texture and mouth-feel. Our state-of-the-art but small-scale winemaking facilities give them the tools to achieve this.
Whilst Nautilus wines can easily be enjoyed on their own, we believe they are even better when paired with delicious food and the philosophy of creating food-friendly wines is paramount for winemaker Clive Jones.
The Nautilus Shell
The mathematically perfect spiral of the Nautilus shell has been admired since ancient Greek times. This shape is found throughout nature: in the growth of seeds on a sunflower head, in the air movement of a cyclone, or in the spiral through which a hawk flies towards its prey. This natural balance and proportion is something we seek to express in our wines.
Our Story
Our energetic and innovative viticultural and winemaking team takes the approach of blending several different fruit parcels to achieve layers of complexity in the wines, focusing on their texture and mouth-feel. Our state-of-the-art but small-scale winemaking facilities give them the tools to achieve this.
Whilst Nautilus wines can easily be enjoyed on their own, we believe they are even better when paired with delicious food and the philosophy of creating food-friendly wines is paramount for winemaker Clive Jones.
Our Team
At Nautilus we like to keep things simple so we have a small (and friendly!) team. A small team means everyone can be fully involved in the winemaking from start to finish. It also means Clive, our winemaker, can spend his time in the winery making wine rather than managing a large team of people. It is a pretty hands-on approach.
Our Winery
Great winery facilities mean that we can pick our grapes when they are ripe rather than being governed by logistics and we have a great deal of control over things like the amount of extraction (the colour and flavour) we get out of the grape skins.
Our Family
Family ownership means we have the benefit of generations of experience through the highs and lows of wine-growing – our owner Robert Hill Smith is a fifth-generation vigneron – and also means that we take a long-term, cautious approach. We only make a change if we are really, really convinced it adds to the quality of what we do.
Our Winemaking
You can find more information about our winemaking and viticulture throughout this website, however feel free to drop us a line if you can’t find the information you are looking for – we will do our best to help!