A THOUSAND GODS NO DEVICES 2024

The Real Review’s Rising Star of the Year New Zealand 2025 Finalist (Top 3)

After spending a decade making wine in the Cahors region of South-West France, as well as collectively working forty plus vintages across nine different countries; Simon and Lauren have returned back to New Zealand to make wine under their own label ‘A Thousand Gods’. Their aim is to make wines they can call their own, both representative of site, yet in their own way, surprisingly unique.

Working closely with their biodynamic grower in the Waihopai Valley of Marlborough, meticulously farmed grapes are hand-picked and undergo wild fermentation. No additions, fining or filtration processes are used. Instead, thoughtful guidance into becoming wines that are generous and approachable, yet also complex and cellar-worthy.

Winery notes (2024 Vintage)
"100% petit manseng from the magnificent Churton vineyard. This wine is as rare as hen's teeth. There is currently only 1ha of petit manseng planted in Aotearoa New Zealand and Churton vineyard have 60% of it, so we were absolutely over the moon when the Weaver family offered us the chance to work with this wonderful grape here in NZ. We believe this variety is one of the greatest white grapes on the planet, but it is very little known outside of its home region of Jurançon in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

Petit manseng when kept as a single variety is typically made into off-dry and sweet wines- but we've made a bone dry version. The 2024 No Devices is deep gold in the glass and showcases unmistakable petit manseng varietal aromas of mango, pineapple, passion fruit, orange peel and jasmine with caramel and marmalade. The palate is extremely concentrated, with bracing acidity and a long, dry finish, which belies the dessert-wine profile of the nose. This is a truly unique wine with enormous cellar potential, rewarding those who have the patience to hold it. Unfined, unfiltered, no added sulphites."

5 Stars & 96/100 Stephen Wong MW, The Real Review, March 2026 (2024 Vintage)
"Burnished gold with a light haze. Clearly a low-intervention wine with a bewilderingly complex nose of honey, preserved lemon peel, mango juice, dried flowers and myriad spices. The palate is explosively concentrated, introducing green olive, wet stone, dried apricot and roasted chestnut to the mix while treading that fine line between oxidative richness and taut, spine-tingling acidity. Full-bodied, with a grain and grip which is well-hidden under its concentration, this has an impressively long and sustained finish which keeps going and going, revealing more of the wine's contrasting personalities of freshness and development as it unfolds. This is mineral and vinous rather than fruity and could well be too unusual for some palates but the quality and intensity is undeniable and it appears to be stable to air, so given the very high levels of acidity, there is no danger of the wine falling over any time soon."