Rippon sits on the western shore of Lake Wanaka in Central Otago, farmed by the Mills family since first plantings in 1982 by Rolfe and Lois Mills. The Mature Vine bottling draws on the oldest, ungrafted own-rooted schist blocks, worked biodynamically and certified organic, with the lake moderating the diurnal swings of this cool, elevated site. Grasses, composts and animals form part of a closed farm system rather than added inputs. The 2022 season ran warmer than the estate's norm, ripening the fruit a little more fully while the glacial schist and quartz soils held on to the mineral tension and freshness that mark Rippon's reds.

Fruit is hand-picked and fermented with indigenous yeasts in the gravity-fed winery, with a proportion of whole bunches and gentle hand-plunging in open vessels to draw out perfume and fine tannin rather than extraction. The 2022 was raised for around sixteen months in French oak, a modest share of it new, then bottled unfined and unfiltered with no added sulphur, in keeping with the estate's low-intervention approach. Alcohol is a restrained 13.5% and the wine is sealed under Diam. The result is textural and savoury, its chalky, waxy tannin carrying delicate red fruit without weight.