te Pā featured in Drinks Business UK Magazine article
We are absolutely delighted to be featured in a significant new feature article on the New Zealand Pinot Noir landscape, in The Drinks Business Magazine (UK).
Here's an excerpt from the article:
The powerful Wairau river rushes along until it meets the sea at the Wairau Bar, and few producers have such a longstanding connection to the water here as te Pā owner Haysley MacDonald. His flagship vineyard (planted exclusively to Sauvignon Blanc in 2003) lies just 150m from the ocean’s edge at the Wairau Bar, where MacDonald’s ancestral iwi (tribe), the Rangitāne, first touched down 800 years ago.
The Māori fishing hook featured on te Pā’s wine label conveys this unbreakable link to the local water, and to MacDonald’s forefathers – some of the first settlers to arrive in New Zealand – many of whom are buried on the site of their original pā (settlement), overlooking the Bar. MacDonald explains that the vineyard is planted on what was once “the old beachfront”, but that over the years “the sea has moved”.
“We still have really abundant water life here… whitebait, clams, trout, flounder, mussels,” says MacDonald, who scatters crushed mussel shells, mixed with compost and hay, over his vine roots to “stop weeds coming through”. An array of 13 different cover crops, including peas, beans and oats, are also sown every other row, and seaweed spray is used five or six times a year, which “makes everything lush, green and healthy”.
Unsurprisingly, te Pā’s single-vineyard Reserve Collection Seaside Sauvignon Blanc has an enticing salinity alongside generous aromatics of stonefruit, guava and lychee, and fleshy gooseberry and passion fruit flavours. In recent years, however, Pinot Noir has taken on an increasing role in te Pā’s portfolio.
“Sauvignon Blanc is the majority of what we grow and sell, but you don’t want to be a one-trick pony, so we launched a Pinot Noir [a blend from two different vineyards] in 2011, under our te Pā brand,” says MacDonald.
It wasn’t long before the producer added a second – Pā Road Pinot Noir – to his stable, and this month MacDonald introduces a third premium expression, te Pā 2021 Reserve Collection Westhaven Pinot Noir, to the UK market for the first time. With an RRP of around £25, this single-vineyard Pinot from the Awatere Valley in Marlborough has spent 15 months in barrel and, according to winemaker Sam Bennett, offers “complex aromas of red fruits, liquorice, violets, tobacco and musk, with characters of cherry, cola, cranberry and cinnamon, and subtle coffee and mocha notes from the new oak”.
Marlborough Pinot Noir is “going from strength to strength”, says MacDonald. “Our 2024 Pinot Noir [still in barrel as of Feb 2025] will be the most exciting we’ve ever released. When I tasted it, I took the rest of the sample bottle home to enjoy, unfined, unfiltered, straight from the barrel – it was exceptional.”
Click here to have a read of the full article.
Huge thanks to editor Sarah Neish for taking the time to come and visit us and to share our story.
Our wines are now exported to 25+ countries around the world, as well as widely available across Aotearoa New Zealand, so please get in touch to be connected with a local stockist. For trade and import inquiries please contact mikela@tepawines.com.
