Reverend Samuel Marsden is generally credited with planting the
first grapevines in New Zealand. The vines were planted as part
of Marsden’s efforts to establish a settlement for the Church
Missionary Society at Kerikeri. He recorded the planting in his
journal of his second visit to New Zealand: We had a small spot
of land cleared and broken up, in which I planted about a
hundred grape vines of different kinds brought from Port
Jackson. New Zealand promises to be very favourable to the vine,
as far as I can judge at the present of the nature of the soil
and climate. Should the vine succeed it will prove of vast
importance in this part of the globe. Marsden does not suggest
that these were the first grapevines planted in New Zealand, and
Frank Thorpy, author of Wine in New Zealand, argues that it is
likely they were not. He suggests that Charles Gordon, the
Society’s superintendent of agriculture, may have already
planted vines at the Society’s other settlements of Rangihoua
and Waitangi, perhaps as early as