Te Awanga, with its sea views and breezes, coastal loams and salty air, is the main line for us. The vineyards, the people, the winemaking, the tinkering, the thinking, the planning and dreaming – these moving parts all eventually arrive at the one point – Te Awanga. It’s where it all comes together.
From small beginnings hand labelling Quarter Acre bottles at the kitchen table, to the organic transformation of Te Awanga Estate, the adventures of the One Off label, to the creation of Wildsong, and all the hard graft and great people in between.
About 25 years ago, I arrived in Hawke’s Bay with a love for making wine and everything I owned packed into the back seat of a small car. A green-horn cellarhand doing my time on the winery floor, and frankly loving every minute of it. No amount of day-dreaming then could have predicted that a patch of dirt on the East Coast of the North Island, New Zealand, would be where I landed, settled in and started to dig into what makes great wine taste like where it comes from.
This is how it’s played out…so far.
To be continued.
Rod.