An eloquent talker, Sam Neill also proves himself to be an eloquent writer. @twopaddocks Twitter/X

Sam Neill is that rare thing, an actor who also produces wine. Well, I suppose there will now be a flood of mail pointing out other actors who’ve made wine. Gerard Depardieu in France, Fess Parker in California, and there’s the odd director: Francis Ford Coppola comes to mind.

I’ve enjoyed many Sam Neill movies: Dean Spanley, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and The Piano are just three – and those all happen to be New Zealand films, of course. He is a man of the world but he is at heart a very proud Kiwi and his favourite place is Central Otago. As he puts it, it was a miraculous stroke of luck that the place he most likes to be on this planet is also a place that grows great pinot noir, which is his grand passion. Sam was born and raised on the South Island. He didn’t move very far.

I’ve also enjoyed many a Sam Neill pinot noir. His brand is Two Paddocks, and The Fusilier is the one to get, if you can find it. Failing that, any of the other Two Paddocks pinot noirs, even the cheapie which is unpretentiously named Picnic.

As Neill is constantly on the move, on film shoots in various parts of the world, he doesn’t actually make the wine. He has a loyal team of people who run his farm, where he grows animals and lavender and trees and other things. Dean Shaw, at Central Otago Wine Co, has been his winemaker for more than 25 years.

Sam Neill, now in his mid-’70s, is presently fighting cancer, and this diagnosis shocked him into writing his memoirs, which he’s done very well. The 400-page hardback is predictably more about moviemaking than winemaking, and that would be reason enough to read the book, but there is also a lot about his love affair with wine.

An eloquent talker, he also proves himself to be an eloquent writer. And entertaining, witty and self-effacing. He seems genuinely surprised that a no-hoper kid from Dunedin ended up world-famous and acting opposite the most exalted people in cinema. He’s equally amazed that he’s managed to produce beautiful wine.

There are some marvellous stories, such as the one about how he came to taste his first great wine and discover Burgundy. The legendary actor James Mason, who he’d never even met, but who’d admired his work, rang him up and invited him to come and stay at his home in Switzerland. He proceeded to convince Neill that he should get an agent, suggested his next film role (in Omen), and coincidentally served him a Gevrey-Chambertin at dinner. Neill, who’d only ever drunk bag-in-box, was gobsmacked, and blurted “What on earth is this?” to which Mason replied: “This is Burgundy my boy, and don’t forget it.” So began Sam Neill’s enduring fascination for pinot noir, which he calls the greatest grape on earth.

It’s often struck me that animals, and occasionally wine, occupy a strong place in Neill’s life and his movies. He claims his best friends are Australian actor Bryan Brown and a pig, not necessarily in that order. In Dean Spanley he plays a priest who reverts to his previous life as a spaniel after drinking his favourite wine, improbably in darkest NZ, a sweet Hungarian Tokaji. It is a clever and witty story.

Neill says the first New Zealand dry table wine he ever tasted was a McWilliam’s Bakano, a tart, insipid effort, weakly red in colour, made from hybrid grapes. It was also my first New Zealand red wine, purchased from a supermarket in Leeton where I was working in the ‘70s. Things have improved radically in New Zealand since those days.

He writes about the first taste he had of his own wine: the day a dozen bottles arrived at his home in Queenstown containing his first vintage, 1997, and he and his wife opened the bottle with much trepidation, to find it was not just good, it was very good indeed.

“That was one of the single greatest moments of my life—another of those moments that change everything”.

Did I Ever Tell You This? A memoir by Sam Neill, published by Text, 2023, hardback AUD $50