Whitehaven Wines began life in 1994 as a romantic business for a couple of corporate escapees, Sue and Greg White, who had given up life in the rat race of Auckland for another kind of life aboard their yacht. When sailing around the country, they took shelter in the Marlborough Sounds from Pacific storms and fell in love with the region. An easy thing to do when harbouring in the spectacularly pristine waters of the Sounds. They decided to settle there on terra firma once more and try their hands at wine production, hiring a winemaker and beginning a business which has now been around for 26 years. Greg has sadly passed away now, leaving a legacy as well as his wife and daughter, Sam, to run the winery. Their winemaker is Peter Jackson.

Coddington Chardonnay is made with grapes grown on a West Auckland vineyard owned by Tim and Angela Coddington, who have provided grapes to Kumeu River Wines since 1998; originally used in the Estate Chardonnay.

The grapes from this vineyard has since proven to have such rich, distinctive flavours that the Brajkovich family decided to create a single vineyard Chardonnay, initally in 2006. 

Kumeu River Coddington Chardonnay is ripe, peachy and rich with supple approachability, density, concentration and luscious creaminess. This makes the wine easy to drink at an early stage and it will age well too.

Kumeu River Wines began life as San Marino Wines in 1944 when Croatian immigrant couple, Mick and Katé Brajkovich, bought a small property with a vineyard on it. Their descendents now own and run Kumeu River Wines, which produces 250,000 bottles of wine annually from its owns 30 hectares of vineyards in Kumeu and from another 10 hectares, owned by local grape growers. 

Commercial description

This deep purple Syrah blossoms with blue fruits and violets, and is directed as if by gravitational force to a subtle undertone of exotic cooking spices. Vibrant and sharply focused, displaying smoke-accentuated nuance on the palate with a plush, velvety texture. Eighteen months in carefully selected French oak barriques with regular bâtonage rounded the tannins, adding to the framework a fine grip and delicate finishing touch. Cellaring Potential: 10 years

A very special Pinot Noir with earthy aromas and fresh mushroom meets red cherry flavours, made from grapes grown on a 0.8 hectare hillside of limestone laden land on the road to Castlepoint in the Wairarapa. 

Winemaker Raffael Burki (hence the name 'B' on the label) produces this exceptional Pinot Noir from the Lime Hill Vineyard and it is a sister wine to the Johner Lime Hill Pinot Noir. 

Two exceptional wines from a tiny plot of land. Pinot lovers will relish both. 

If dark and broody with loads of black cherry and dried herb aromas sounds like a wine you'd love to drink, buy this beautiful Pinot Noir from the Inlet Vineyard in Bannockburn, Central Otago. 

This 5.25 hectare site is situated 225 to 245 metres above sea level where the grapes' growing season is extended thanks to the elevation, which provides cool nights as a foil to the hot days here. 

Flavours of structured dark fruit combine with firm tannins and a long life ahead.

The wine was aged in French oak and bottled unfined.

From Forager wines owned by Dom Maxwell (winemaker at Greystone) comes its little siter wine Little Forager. This is 100% Pinot Noir sourced from three different sites made up of river gravels, silt loam and chalky limestone and fermented naturally with indigenous yeasts, 20% whole bunch and natural MLF.

The result is textural and generous with sweet fruit in an elegant style.

PURE, FRESH & TEXTURAL BARREL AGED CHARDONNAY

Bright, light yellow/green, it is mouth filling and vibrant with hints of stonefruit and citrus. Creamy and textural with a refreshing dry mineral finish. Approachable and delicious.

Vintage
2023 was a challenging vintage for Hawke’s Bay. Intensive viticulture work was imperative throughout the growing season.  High rainfall, humidity, reduced sunshine hours and Cyclone Gabrielle hitting the region early February was the icing on the cake.  A silver lining was the harvest was weeks behind a normal growing season which mean’t very slow ripening and high acids so grape maturity levels were behind when the cyclone hit. As the season unfolded and settled into autumn it was a very late pick for a lot of the varieties, in some respects a saving grace.

Vineyards
Kokako, Ohiti Valley and Ascot, Havelock North

Winemaking
90% Kokako Vineyard, Ohiti Valley 10%  Ascot Vineyard, Havelock North.  No SO2. Pressed to tank for cold settling overnight. Racked clean to barrel. Natural fermentation and malo-lactic fermentation to completion. Aged in matured French oak barrels on lees for 9 months.  Final Blend, barrel selection to taste.

pH 3.56 TA 7.0 g/L Alc 13.0 %v/v

Intensely perfumed with lifted savoury notes interlaced with dark cherries, plum and cracked pepper. The tannins are soft and silky, layered with plush, ripe red fruits.

In Essential Awatere fashion the finish is lively, crisp and lingering.

A delicious wine that brings together ?new world? fruit and ?old world? elegance and minerality.

In a valley forged by fault lines, carved by winds, drenched by sun and cooled by the Pacific Ocean, our wines are the essence of the Awatere. 

The Awatere Valley is windy, dry, stony and harsh, with hot days and cold nights that create extraordinary wines. Those extremes are heightened at the exposed Breloft Vineyard, where vines teeter at the edge of the Awatere River, buffeted by winds from the nearby Pacific Ocean. 

They dig their roots deep through rocky soils to survive, and produce wines of elegance, with a minerality and crisp clean acidity that are unique to our sliver of land in the heart of the Awatere Valley.

Pinot Gris for the Exiled comes from the St Helena clone of Pinot gris grown on both Waiheke and Ponui Islands. Lightly crushed and pressed then settled in tank before being racked with light solids into tank for fermentation. A mixture of un-inoculated and cultured yeast ferments are used with each vineyard fermenting slowly until the desired balance of acid, tannin and sugar is reached. The wines are then chilled to below zero to stop the fermentation before blending, the blend is held at low temperatures in the cellar until bottling to retain as much of the natural carbon dioxide as possible.

Off-dry in style.

We think these wines offer exceptionally good value for money and this Marlborough Pinot Noir offers a super tasty expression of Pinot with notes of complex earthy flavours as well as appealing red fruit and the balance of crisp acidity providing a lingering finish.

The name Kōparepare is Maori for gift and $1 from every bottle of wine is donated to LegaSea, a not for profit organisation set up by the New Zealand Sport Fishing Council in 2012 to raise awareness of the marine environment and inspire public support.

The wines are made by Whitehaven in Marlborough, which was founded by Greg and Sue White in 1994 after they sailed into the Marlborough Sounds to shelter from a storm in the early 1990s and fell for the natural beauty of the region and the haven it provided. 

Located on the north facing slopes of the Brancott Valley, Clayvin Vineyard takes its unique name from the clay based soil profile that lies beneath the vineyard. The complex clay profile varies across the vineyard, allowing a number of different varieties to be grown, including Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

The clay soil gives our Clayvin Pinot Noirs richness and generosity and an immediately appealing soft texture.

High density planting allows for very low yields per vine. Low yielding vines tend to produce wines of great concentration and richness.

This vineyard consistently produces grapes of outstanding quality.

The name Opawa means smoky river in Maori and this lovely light to medium bodied Pinot Noir is named after the old Opawa River. Flavours of earthy smokey notes are supported by fresh wild red berry aromas of strawberries, raspberries and plums. Supple silky acidity adds length to every tasty sip.  

Winemaker Clive Jones makes this wine was made from a range of vineyards in Marlborough. The grapes are cold soaked and fermented with indigenous yeast with the wine being pressed into French oak barriques for maturation, before being clarified and bottled.