Te Mata Estate

Te Mata Estate is New Zealand's oldest winery, dating from the early 1890's. Vines were first planted at Te Mata Estate in 1892 on three parcels of hillside land above the homestead. Today, Te Mata Estate still utilises those original three vineyards to produce its most famous wines; Coleraine, Awatea and Elston. Coleraine derives its name from the Coleraine vineyard, home of John & Wendy Buck who have been co-owners of Te Mata Estate since 1978. All the original vineyards have been replanted.

It is a New Zealand family owned winery - a true estate, specialising in grape growing and winemaking from its ten Hawke's Bay vineyards. Acknowledged as one of only five icon wineries in New Zealand. Te Mata's completely handmade wines are renowned as the country's finest.

Under the direction of John Buck, Te Mata Estate has, over nearly thirty years, produced a stunning array of red and white wines including such famous labels as Coleraine and Awatea Cabernet/Merlots, Bullnose Syrah, Elston Chardonnay and Cape Crest Sauvignon Blanc.

The first Coleraine was made from the 1982 vintage and created an instant sensation within New Zealand for its quality. Originally a single vineyard wine, from 1989 Coleraine has been an assemblage of the finest Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc wines produced from thirty plots within Te Mata Estate’s nine Hawke’s Bay vineyards. Peter Cowley, now Technical Director, has been in charge of winemaking since 1984.

Not content to rest on its laurels, Te Mata has also developed a unique single vineyard from which it produces its Woodthorpe wines.

Hawkes Bay

Hawkes Bay, encompassing Napier on the east coast of North Island, is New Zealand's second largest region by plantings, with 4,500 hectares (or 20 percent of the country's total) in 2006. It is led by Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon (34 percent), Chardonnay (23 percent), Sauvignon Blanc (16.5 percent) and Pinot Noir (nine percent).

It boasts a diverse spread of soils, from fertile alluvial to stony dry, resulting in an array of variously-sized wineries from the small to the not-so-small; the region accounts for 12.5 percent of the country's 530 wineries, suggesting a happy balance between the two.

Hawkes Bay continues to fine-tune its Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon/Franc Bordeaux blends, offering some fine, fresh, pencil-shaving-nuanced examples, particularly from the Te Mata Estate (ie Coleraine). The more recent success story seems to be that of Syrah, in a cool, black pepper Northern Rhône style.

Syrah/Shiraz

A noble black grape variety grown particularly in the Northern Rhône where it produces the great red wines of Hermitage, Cote Rôtie and Cornas, and in Australia where it produces wines of startling depth and intensity. Reasonably low yields are a crucial factor for quality as is picking at optimum ripeness. Its heartland, Hermitage and Côte Rôtie, consists of 270 hectares of steeply terraced vineyards producing wines that brim with pepper, spices, tar and black treacle when young. After 5-10 years they become smooth and velvety with pronounced fruit characteristics of damsons, raspberries, blackcurrants and loganberries.

It is now grown extensively in the Southern Rhône where it is blended with Grenache and Mourvèdre to produce the great red wines of Châteauneuf du Pape and Gigondas amongst others. Its spiritual home in Australia is the Barossa Valley, where there are plantings dating as far back as 1860. Australian Shiraz tends to be sweeter than its Northern Rhône counterpart and the best examples are redolent of new leather, dark chocolate, liquorice, and prunes and display a blackcurrant lusciousness.

South African producers such as Eben Sadie are now producing world- class Shiraz wines that represent astonishing value for money.