The Kirbys and McKennas are airborne winemakers, Escarpment is an artisanal project for both families. For a house that is devoted to the creation of world class Pinot Noir in the Burgundian style, the rendering of a full bodied Chardonnay wine comes naturally. Escarpment have aspired to release a flagship white which can be sibling to the elite single Vineyard Kupe Pinot Noir. Their salubrious parcels yield the exceptional quality of fruit required to realize the ambition and construct a rich golden wine, the pinnacle of New Zealand Chardonnay.

Escarpment allows individual vineyard expression from exceptional sites within the Martinborough region. The vines are planted to alluvial gravel terraces at the base of the Aorangi Ranges, the very hills made famous by the legendary Polynesian voyager who discovered New Zealand. In the search for the perfect site, Larry and Sue McKenna kept coming back to an area that offered the rich mix of elements required to grow and make the finest new world wines. The condusive mesoclimes surrounding the superlative Kupe Block stimulate vines and yield parcels of the finest Chardonnay, barrel fermented in a mix of new and seasoned oak followed by a judicious term of lees maturation.