Te Whare Ra Sauvignon Blanc 2023

Te Whare Rā (TWR) is a boutique, certified organic vineyard and winery located in the Marlborough sub-region of Renwick. Te Whare Ra is a Māori name meaning ‘house in the sun’. It was originally established in 1979 and since 2003 it has been owned and nurtured by two winemakers, Anna and Jason Flowerday.

Their 11 hectare vineyard is planted to 7 different varietals and is home to the oldest vines in the region. They have spent more than 20 years bringing these old vines back to life by farming organically with a regenerative mindset, and with the future custodians of the land in mind. And at the same time, they have been quietly building a reputation as thoughtful, organic winemakers whose wines are now globally recognised as amongst the best from New Zealand.

Grapes were sourced from two vineyard regions - 80% from Awatere, 20% from Wairau. The Awatere parcels of fruit for this wine were select machine-picked and the Wairau (home block) portion was hand-picked and hand-sorted. The free-run and soft pressings parcels were combined for fermentation. The majority of the parcels underwent slow, cool fermentation in stainless, with 10% of the blend fermented at warmer temperatures in older French oak demi-muids. All parcels spent time on fine lees, post ferment for texture. The wine was bottled unfined.